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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



ALCOHOL : 



NATURE AND EFFECTS. 



TEN LECTURES. 



BT 

DR. CHARLES A. STORY, 

OF CHICAGO. 



NEW YORK: 

National Temperance Society and Publication House, 
172 William Street. 

1868. 



& 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1S6S, by 

J. N\ STEARNS, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District 
of 2s ew York. 



EOCE^FELL & ROLLINS. STEEEOTTPEES A>~B PEIXTEBS, 
122 Washington Street, Boston. 



PREFACE. 



People of the Great Republic! You are 
masters of a land over which no monarch rules. 
You are the owners and governors of a soil which 
requires only wisdom, watchfulness, and persever- 
ance to make it eternally free. Any cause that 
you espouse will soon be successful in fact, and 
famous in history. Your wishes and desires soon 
change into established policy, and your policy be- 
comes the law. Let liberty inspire your counsels, 
and justice preside over all your acts. These 
Lectures may, perhaps, help to inform your judg- 
ment, and inspire your zeal. Rulers in the Land of 
the Free! I dedicate them to you and to your 
posterity. If you have faith in a holy cause, and 
trust in each other, all will be well. 

CHARLES A. STORY, M.D. 

Chicago, III. April, 1868. 



CONTENTS. 



oi<«o 



I. 



paos 



The Nature of Alcohol — Where does it 
come from?— -how can you get it? — 
How Much is there in the Liquor? — 
What is it good for? — And what is 
it? .7 

II. 

The Nature of Alcohol — Where does it 
come from? — how can you get it? — 
How Much is there in the Liquor? — 
What is it good for? — And what is 
it? 51 

III. 

Alcohol — What Effect has it upon the 
Human Body? — Does it ever cause Dis- 
ease and Death? — What Part of the 
System does it Injure ? — How and Why ? 89 



IV CONTENTS. 

IV. 

Alcohol — What Effect has it upon the 
Human Body?— Does it ever cause Dis- 
ease and Death ? — What Part of the 
System does it Injure ? — How and Why ? 135 



Alcohol — What Effect has it upon the 
Immortal Mind? — Does it ever cause 
Indolence, Ignorance, or Depravity? — 
is it ever the cause of mania, insanity, 
Madness, Lunacy, Delirium, Wickedness, 
or Crime? — Does it increase the Num- 
ber of Dolts, Idiots, and Fools? — In 
what Way ? — and why ? 175 

VI. 

Alcohol — What Effect has it upon the 
Immortal Mind? — Does it ever cause 
Indolence, Ignorance, or Depravity? 
— Is it ever the Cause of Mania, In- 
sanity, Madness, Lunacy, Delirium, 
Wickedness, or Crime? — Does it in- 



CONTENTS. V 

crease the number of dolts, idiots, 
and Fools?-— In what Way?— And 
Why? 221 

vn. 

Alcohol — How much is made ? — How 
many Factories ? — How much Grain 
and Fruit is used in making it ? — How 
many People are thus employed ? — In 
how many Places is it kept for Sale ? 

— How many People drink it ? — How 
soon do the victims die ? — how many 
Years of human Life are wasted? — 
how great is the number of the dead ? 

— How many Drinkers are reformed? 

— And Who? 269 

VIII. 

Alcohol — Its Kesults reduced to Dollars 
and Cents. — What is the Value of the 
Time and Industry lost ? — How much 
Money does it take to maintain Hospi- 
tals FOR DRUNKEN VAGABONDS ? — WHAT 

is the Cost of Asylums for Lunatics 
and Idiots ? — What is the Cost of 
Crimes and Prisons?— How much do 
we pay our Paupers? — What is the 
Value of the Property we burn and 
destroy? — Who pays the Taxes? — 



VI CONTENTS. 

Does this accord with Justice, Liberty, 

and Law? 305 

IX. 

Alcohol — Is it ever adulterated or coun- 
terfeited ? — What are some of the 
Substances used in its Adulteration? 

— Are any of these Substances poison ? 

— What are organic vegetable Alka- 
lies ? — Are they cheaper than Alcohol 
itself ? — how much cheaper ? — to 
what Extent are alcoholic Liquors 
adulterated ? — is it a crime to put 
deadly Poisons in Liquors? . . • 329 

x. 

Alcohol — Are there many Articles used 
in imitating it ? — what are some of 
them ? — to what extent is adultera- 
tion carried on ? — how do you know ? 

— Have you got any responsible Au- 
thorities ? — Who ? — Any Books ? — 
What Books ? — Can you detect these 
Frauds ? — How ? — What about Chem- 
istry? — Should deliberate Fraud be 
punished ?—- What is the Duty of a 
free People? 361 



I. 



The Nature of Alcohol — Where does it come 
from ? — how can you get it ? — how much is 
there in the Liquor ? — What is it good for ? 
— And what is it ? 



JMAfiRAMS OF THE STUMAtRiaTYaRIOlTS COZDITIOJS. 




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moderate DrixiMiuS . 



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Ulcerates 



After a. long Debauch.. 




Death "by Delirium Tremens 



-E?u/ a on ScoTte, 6y^4.1pUe. 



ALCOHOL; 

ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 
I. 

We live in a Kepublic, where the people 
are supreme, where the majority rules, and 
where public opinion is the foundation of 
law. 

To educate the public mind, and to awak- 
en the public conscience, concerning a given 
subject, is equivalent to enacting laws upon 
that subject ; because out of the mind and 
heart of the people the laws of the land 
are made. 

The trickery and chicanery of the selfish 
and avaricious cannot long prevail against 
a just and righteous cause, upon which the 



8 ALCOHOL ; 

people are well educated. And the Tem- 
perance cause will be triumphant only 
when the people are thoroughly informed 
upon the subject. 

All information given to the people should 
be principles and facts, drawn from stand- 
ard medical and legal works, and other reli- 
able sources of authority. 

Such information, thus obtained, will 
have more weight on the mind of the peo- 
ple than mere eloquence, and do more to 
convince them that the cause of Temperance 
is just and worthy, than any other form of 
appeal. 

Theory and fancy do very well for orna- 
ment, but argument is worth more than rhet- 
oric only, and facts have more value than 
high-sounding words. 

The first inquiries that present themselves 
are concerning alcohol : — 

Where do we find it ? 



ITS NATURE AKD EFFECTS. 9 

How is it obtained ? and 

What is it good for ? 

In answering these questions, let me call 
your attention to the " United States Dis- 
pensatory ;" a book written by Dr. George 
B. Wood, of Philadelphia, and adopted 
as a standard work of authority by all the 
druggists, and all the regular physicians 
throughout the Republic. 

You will find this book in all the respect- 
able drug-stores in the land, and all the 
doctors will tell you it is reliable authority. 

From an article on alcohol, on page 60 of 
that work, I shall make a number of ex- 
tracts : — 

"Alcohol is the intoxicating ingredient in 
all spirituous liquors, including, under this 
term, wines, porter, ale, beer, cider, and 
every other liquid which has undergone the 
vinous fermentation." 

What does it say ? w Alcohol is the in- 



10 ALCOHOL ; 

toxicating ingredient in all spiritous liq- 
uors." So says Dr. Wood ; and no intelli- 
gent man will undertake to deny bina as au- 
thority. He has been at the head of the 
medical faculty of Philadelphia, and regard- 
ed as a first-class chemist, for half a cen- 
tury ; and during that time has revised his 
Dispensatory every five years, adding to it 
and taking from it, as science and the dis- 
covery of new truths have directed. The 
quotations I make have stood the test of 
advancing science and criticism for fifty 
years ! 

He says : w Alcohol is the intoxicating 
ingredient in all spirituous liquors ; " but 
he means all pure spirituous liquors, of 
course, because he was not then considering 
the vile adulterations, filthy compounds, 
base counterfeits, and imitations, that we 
frequently find in the liquor market. We 
are speaking in this lecture of pure liquors, 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 11 

intoxicating liquors that are not adulterated, 
drugged, nor counterfeited ; liquors that 
are what they purport to be, — pure, intoxi- 
cating liquors. Of these counterfeits we 
shall speak in another lecture. 

Under the term " spirituous liquors," he 
"includes wine, porter, ale, beer, cider, 
and every other liquid which has undergone 
the vinous fermentation." 

Now what is "vinous fermentation"? 

When any sweet thing sours it is said to 
"ferment." Take any sweet liquid, put 
yeast into it, and let it " work," or " sour," 
and you have "fermentation." 

If the liquid is kept tolerably cool — un- 
der 75 degrees of heat, it is called " vinous 
fermentation," because the liquid turns to 
" spirituous liquors." If the liquid is kept 
quite w r arm — over 75 degrees of heat, and 
under 90 degrees, it is called " acetic fermen- 
tations," because it turns to vinegar. So it 



12 alcohol; 

depends upon the temperature, as to wheth- 
er your sweet liquid, when it works, sours, 
or ferments, will turn to "spirituous liquor" 
or to w vinegar. " 

It often happens that it w T ill first turn to 
spirituous liquor, and afterwards to vinegar ; 
— owing to the fact that it is kept cool at 
first, but gets warmer afterwards. 

Before your sweet liquid ferments there is 
no alcohol in it ! 

There is no alcohol in grape-juice before 
it ferments, — not a particle ! There is no 
alcohol in apple-juice before it ferments, — 
not one atom ! There is no alcohol in currant- 
juice, or any other sweet juice or sweet liq- 
uid, before it ferments, — not one single parti- 
cle. These juices cannot make you drunk be- 
fore they ferment ! They cannot, intoxicate 
before they ferment, because they contain no 
alcohol before they ferment. "Alcohol is the 
intoxicating ingredient." No sweet thing 



ITS NATUBE AND EFFECTS. 13 

can intoxicate until after it * works" or fer- 
ments. Never ! Alcohol is nowhere to be 
found, in all the fields of nature, until some 
sweet liquid has begun to ferment, or de- 
cay ; for fermentation is a process of de- 
cay. 

I quote again from the Dispensatory : 
"Alcohol is the product of sugar, in a liquid 
state, diluted, at a temperature of from 60 
to 75 degrees, and the presence of a fer- 
ment called vinous fermentation." 

There we have it : " Sugar in a liquid 
state, — diluted," that is, mixed with con- 
siderable water, or juice, and the presence 
of a ferment. 

" Sugar wilt not undergo the vinous fer- 
mentation by itself ; but requires to be dis- 
solved in water, subjected to the influence 
of a ferment, and kept at a certain temper- 
ature." 

Now what is a ferment? 



14 ALCOHOL ; 

"A ferment " means yeast, or, in Scripture 
language, * leaven ; ' something that will 
make it rise, or blubber, or sour, or, what 
is better language, make it ferment. 

This ferment has other names besides 
yeast and leaven. When put into bread, it 
is often called " emptyings " or "rising," and 
when put into vinegar, or other liquids, to 
cause them to " work," it is often called 
"mother," or "baum." 

So that yeast, leaven, emptyings, rising, 
mother and baum, are almost synonymous 
terms, and mean about the same thing, — 
"a ferment." 

A young lady, out in Arkansas, says, " It 
is the stuff what makes the doin's git up and 
confusticate ! " 

Many of the sweet liquid juices contain a 
ferment, already, within themselves, so that 
it does not become necessary to put one in. 
Such liquids will ferment or work of their 



ITS NATUEE AND EFFECTS. 15 

own accord, if they are kept moderately 
warm and open to the air. All they want 
is just a little start, and they will work 
themselves. If kept cold and confined in 
air-tight casks, they will not ferment at all, 
— even if they do contain yeast. They 
will then remain as they are. But if kept 
warm, say between 60 and 75 degrees, and 
exposed to the air, they will undergo " vi- 
nous fermentation," — or, what is the same 
thing, alcoholic fermentation. That is, the 
sugar in them, or the sweet principle in 
them, will be changed to alcohol, and they 
become "intoxicating liquors." But if they 
are kept still warmer, say from 75 to 90 de- 
grees, and exposed to the air, they will un- 
dergo "acetic fermentation;" that is, the 
sugar in' them will change into alcohol, and 
the alcohol will change immediately into 
acetic acid, which is the same as vinegar. 
Sometimes merely shaking or jolting, 



16 ALCOHOL ; 

stirring, churning, or agitating the liquid, 
will cause it to begin "acetic fermentation," 
and change from alcoholic liquor to vinegar. 
As, for instance, you take a barrel of pure 
grape-juice, that has undergone the alcoholic 
fermentation, and you put it into a wagon, 
and jolt it over a rough road a few hours, 
or churn it, or shake it up thoroughly, and 
you will find, in a short time, it has un- 
dergone acetic fermentation or, what is the 
same thing, turned to vinegar. 

The more sugar the more alcohol ; or the 
more sugar the stronger the vinegar, as the 
case may be. 

If, however, your liquid is very sweet, 
like syrup or molasses, having over thirty 
per cent, of its bulk pure sugar, and but 
little water, it will not ferment at all, at 
any temperature, whether it is kept warm, 
or cold, whether in air-tight casks, or ex- 



ITS NATUKE AND EFFECTS. 17 

posed to the air ; but will remain as it is, — 
syrup. 

The pure juice of the best grapes contains 
about twenty per cent, sugar. 

Now, if you put that juice into a kettle, 
and boil it down to one-half, it becomes a 
syrup, and will keep in any climate, — keep 
just as it is, — keep sweet, — keep fresh, — 
keep pure. And in this way you can al- 
ways have on hand the pure sweet juice of 
the grape harmless as it comes from the 
cluster, and fresh from the hand of God. 
Because, when you have " boiled it down to 
one-half," you have simply evaporated one- 
half of its bulk, and evaporated nothing 
but water, leaving all the sugar and other 
nutritious substances in it. After it has 
been thus evaporated or "boiled down," 
about forty per cent, of what is left is pure 
sugar, and will keep in any land or lati- 
tude, in any climate, and for any number 
2 



18 ALCOHOL ; 

of years. And whenever you want a 
drink of the pure, sweet juice of the grape, 
you have only to add to the syrup its bulk 
in water, — just the same amount of water 
that you drove off when you boiled it 
down, — and you have it, pure as the fabled 
nectar of the gods, drawn from your 
heavenly Father's own brewery, — the 
vine-covered hills ; and harmless as any- 
thing that nature produces on the broad 
lands of the earth ! 

When I travelled over the vine-growing 
countries of Europe, through Spain and 
France and Italy and Greece, I frequently 
purchased this kind of wine for my own 
use, and always when I could get it. And 
let me say right here, that with all the wide- 
spread drunkenness of Europe, — and it is 
absolutely awful to think about, — and with 
all the temptation that avarice offers to 
adulterate and poison and spoil the pure 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 19 

grape-juice of those sunny lands, still there 
are many temperate and intelligent men, 
who save for their own use, as well as to 
sell, a supply of the pure juice of the grape, 
as delicious as when it hung in the grape 
unpressed on the hill-adorning vine. 

There are several other ways of preserv- 
ing wine, besides boiling it down. You 
may can it the same as you can fruit. Put 
it hot into an air-tight can, and seal it. It 
will then keep just the same as canned 
peaches, or canned strawberries will keep, 
and just as long. 

Still another way is to put it into barrels, 
or jugs, or bottles, and cork them up well, 
and sink them into a pool or stream of cold 
water. The ancients kept large quantities 
of wine in this way. The object is to keep 
the air and the warmth from it. And the 
barrels and jugs could be set into an ice- 



20 alcohol ; 

house. But perhaps the safest and easiest 
is to boil it down. 

Anything that contains sugar can be kept 
in this way. The juice of the maple-tree, 
the juice of the sugar-cane, or sorghum, 
or beet, or apple or any other sweet thing, 
can be boiled down or canned, to preserve 
it. . 

So you see that the sugar, or syrup, or 
sweet principle — if you choose to call it by 
that name — must be " diluted " with water 
or juice, or liquid of some kind, before it 
will ferment. 

" Alcohol," says the Dispensatory, — and I 
would have you mark the words, — Kf alcohol 
is the product of sugar, in a liquid state, di- 
luted," etc. 

Now, what kind of sugar? Any kind of 
sugar. Alcohol can be made of every 
kind of sugar, and out of every kind of 
juice that contains the sweet principle. 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 21 

■ 

Out of grape-juice, apple-juice, cane-juice, 
peach-juice, pumpkin-juice, and water-mel- 
lon-juice. Beet spirit, or beet whiskey, is 
largely manufactured in France, from beet- 
juice. 

A few one-ideaed temperance men have 
thought that the only way to bring about 
the reform, was to cut down the vineyards, 
and grub up the orchards, or refuse to plant 
them. What folly ! What madness ! Just 
about as foolish as the Shakers, who have 
come to the conclusion that the only way to 
destroy sin is to destroy the human race ; 
and that they are going to destroy the 
human race by refusing to marry, live a 
life of celibacy, and just let the race run 
out! 

You may clip the Mississippi river dry 
with a tin cup, you may batter the Rocky 
Mountains down with a knitting needle, or 
do any other " big thing " with very small 



22 ALCOHOL ; 

tools, just as easy as you can destroy sin by 
the Shaker's plan, or do away with intem- 
perance by M cutting down the orchards and 
grubbing up the vineyards." You cannot 
find fools enough to help you in the enter- 
prise. There is no scarcity of fools, — not 
by any means. But that particular kind of 
a fool is a scarce article ! 

We have seen that alcohol does not exist 
in nature, anywhere, in all her vast domin- 
ions ; but can be made by " fermenting " or 
souring any substance that contains the 
"sweet principle." Now, while we are on 
this part of the subject, let me ask, can you 
make it of anything that does not contain 
sugar ? 

And Chemistry shall answer the ques- 
tion. And again we quote from the United 
States Dispensatory : " One part of diastes 
mingled with two thousand parts of liquid 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 23 

starch, at a temperature of 160 degrees, 
will convert the starch into grape-sugar." 

Aha ! Starch can be turned into sugar 
with a little diastes ! If you take two 
thousand pounds of starch, and wet it with 
water, so as to make a liquid, the same as 
it is when women use it to starch clothes 
with, and then put in one pound of diastes, 
and heat it all up to 160 degrees, you have 
converted the whole of the starch into 
sugar, — and grape-sugar at that ! Then 
you will have in your hot water, two 
thousand pounds of grape-sugar made out 
of starch, and ready to boil down into 
syrup, and make into sugar, or else ready 
to ferment, until it turns into alcoholic 
liquor ! 

The United States Dispensatory, at page 
446, says that "Malt consists of the seeds 
(of barley, rye, or corn), made to germinate 
by warmth and moisture, and then baked, 



24 alcohol ; 

I 

so as to deprive them of vitality." Or, in 
other words, the barley is soaked in warm 
water until it sprouts, ready to grow, and it 
is then baked gently to keep it from grow- 
ing any more. 

The language of the Dispensatory is very 
scientific, and reminds me of the new way 
people have of saying K Eoot pig, or die ! " 
The new way is "Perforate the particles 
of terra firma with your own proboscis, 
youthful porker, or else relinquish your 
vitality." He says, K The barley is made 
to germinate by warmth and moisture, 
and then baked so as to deprive it of vi- 
tality." 

The reason it is soaked until it sprouts, 
is to enliven the diastes which is already in 
it, so that the diastes changes the starch 
into grape-sugar. And then it is baked, so 
as to keep it sugar, — so as to make it stay 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 25 

Several other grains have diastes and 
starch in them, and will turn to sugar in the 
same way. 

So, then, you can make alcohol out of 
everything that contains starch, by first 
changing the starch into sugar. 

Now, what can you make starch out of? 
You can make starch out of corn. You 
can make starch out of wheat, and barley, 
and rye, and oats, and rice. You can make 
starch out of potatoes, and out of nearly 
everything that grows, that is good to eat. 
Starch enters largely into all the grains, 
many vegetables, and many fruits. And 
you can make alcohol liquor from all of 
them. 

No use of "cutting down the orchards 
and grubbing up the vineyards," as long as 
we find the same thing, in a little different 
form, in all the grains, and in most of the 
vegetables and fruits of the whole earth. 



26 alcohol ; 

You would have good time, K cutting down 
and grubbing up ! " 

Let us not think of such folly. Let us 
encourage the raising of grains and vege- 
tables, and fruits of all kinds, including 
grapes and apples. 

Plant your, orchards and your vineyards, 
gentlemen. Raise your apples and your 
grapes. Cover the earth with trees and 
vines. Push on your productive industry 
with all your energy. March on with your 
enterprise, and let the earth bring forth 
abundance. Raise your fortunes from the 
earth. Let labor and land accumulate 
for your use and comfort, — a harvest of 
wealth. 

But let us, at the same time, teach the 
people that it is not right to eat rotten grain, 
nor rotten vegetables, nor rotten grapes, 
nor rotten apples. There is plenty of 
these things that are not rotten. 



ITS NATUKE AND EFFECTS. 27 

Now, whoever drinks alcoholic liquors of 
any kind does just the same as if he were 
to eat rotten grains, or rotten fruits, because 
alcohol is a principle of death and decay, 
that is obtained from grains, and vegetables, 
and fruits, only after they have begun to 
ferment, decay, or rot, — all of which words 
mean about the same thing. In living and 
growing nature, alcohol can nowhere be 
found ; but in dead and decaying nature 
we find it everywhere. 

Decay is written upon all things. The 
flowers bloom and perish. The apple 
ripens, and falls, and rots. Set away the 
milk when it is warm, and it sours, moulds, 
and putrefies. You kill the ox, in a warm 
day, and the meat soon spoils, unless you 
take pains to preserve it. Man grows and 
perishes. As soon as life ceases decompo- 
sition begins. 

The same principle prevails everywhere. 



28 ALCOHOL ; 

The juice of the fruit, unless boiled and 
canned, will very soon spoil ; and when 
it is spoiling, we say it is rotting, or fer- 
menting ; for these words mean almost the 
same thing. 

Imagine a citizen of Chicago eating w blue 
beef." You tell him, "Neighbor, you had 
better not eat that stuff. " And he an- 
swers, "Why, you must be a fool to call 
this 'stuff.' Why, it's beef — it's ox- 
meat. " 

You say to him, "I know it is beef, — I 
know it is ox-meat ; but then it is spoiled 
beef, — it is rotten ox-meat." But he re- 
plies, "What do you suppose I care if it is 
spoiled and rotten, — aint it beef ? — aint it 
ox-meat? — and aint beef good to eat, — 
say?" You tell him, "It was good to eat 
once, but it is spoiled. " 

But he says, "I can't see the point. If 
it was orood once, it is always good, and 



ITS NATUKE AND EFFECTS. 29 

the older the better, and I'll down with it. " 
So he chews away at the carrion, and thinks 
it is beef he is eating. 

Some people shoot quails, and pigeons, 
and chickens, and let them hang out in the 
warm sun three or four days, just as they 
are, feathers, entrails, and all; and then, 
after the meat begins to get a little bit soft, 
they clean them and eat them. They 
call these "mulled" birds ! I call it spoiled 
meat. People who like blue beef and 
mulled chicken, would naturally like de- 
cayed juice from rotten sugar, — which is 
alcoholic liquor. 

When you find a decayed potato on j^our 
plate, you are not apt to eat it, because you 
know it is not healthy ; and if you break a 
bad egg into your cup, you are not going to 
eat it, for the same reason. Then why 
should you drink decayed sugar and stag- 
nant water ? 



30 ALCOHOL ; 

If you take a gallon of beer and boil it 
half an hour, — long enough to evaporate 
the alcohol there is in it, — and then set it 
aside until it is cool, you would not begin 
to drink it. It would then be only a putrid 
mass of filthy slop. And fermented cider, 
the same. It will not take you long to try 
it. Boil fermented wine an hour, and 
afterwards try to drink it, and you will po- 
litely let it alone. Not any more of that 
kind, I thank you ! 

Dr. Henry Munroe, of Hull Medical Col- 
lege, England, says that "Alcohol is no- 
where to be found in any product of nature, 
— was never itself created by God ; but is 
essentially an artificial thing, prepared by 
man through the destructive process of fer- 
mentation." 

It was for centuries supposed that alco- 
hol was a simple chemical element, and that 
it could not be reduced or subdivided ; but 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 31 

more recently it has been analyzed, and 
is found to be made up of 
4 parts carbon, 
6 " hydrogen, and 
2 " oxygen, 
by measure. It is, in point of fact, a 
hydrated oxide of ethyl. Instead of being 
one simple element, it is a combination of 
three elements, in a definite and exact pro- 
portion. There are some foreign matters 
commonly mixed in with these three ; one 
of which is fusil oil, of which I shall speak 
hereafter. 

A dead horse lying out on the common, 
a dead cow in the back yard, or a dead dog 
in the ditvu, exposed to the air, and ex- 
posed to the warmth, are converted into 
carrion and throw out a terrible stench or 
smell. 

But did you know that a vat of rotting 
corn, or rotting rye or barley, or a cask of 



32 ALCOHOL ; 

fermenting grape-juice or apple-juice, ex- 
posed to air and heat in the same way, are 
all undergoing the same process of decay 
or putrefaction that the dead carcasses are ? 
The apple will rot; why not the juice? 
The grape will rot; why not the juice? 
Answer that if you can. Wet corn will 
rot. What is to hinder the juice of wet 
and sour corn from rotting? 

They do rot, and in the same way that 
animal matter does, only the}' do not hap- 
pen to have the same smell ! So there is 
the difference, — and the only difference 
worth noticing — the difference of smell ! 
. All are decaying, all are rotting, all are 
fermenting, all are decomposing, all are 
putrefying alike ; but the vegetables and 
fruits and juices do not happen to throw off 
quite the same stench that the carcasses of 
the dead animals do. 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 33 

Now, why the difference of smell ? The 
answer is easy; and I will tell you. 

The dead animals have nitrogen in their 
bodies, and that makes the stench. The 
putrefying grains and juices have no nitro- 
gen in them, and hence they (Jo not smell 
so badly. There is the difference. 

Go into the brewery or distillery, and 
throw nitrogen into the vat of fermenting 
grain, or go down cellar where you have 
wine or cider fermenting, and throw nitro- 
gen into them, and at once the terrible 
stench of putrefying carrion will be thrown 
off from your liquor. A little nitrogen 
will change the whole thing to carrion. 

The nitrogen will not make them decay 
any faster, nor decompose in any different 
manner, but only makes the difference in 
the smell. 

The decomposition and putrefaction of 
all animal matter, exposed to warmth and 

3 



34 ALCOHOL ; 

air, and the decomposition and putrefaction 
of all liquid vegetable matter, exposed in 
the same way to warmth and air, is the 
same, only in the one nitrogen is present, 
and in the other nitrogen is not present. 

Since there is sugar in animal flesh, and 
since, in the process of decay, the sugar 
changes to alcohol, it follows that there is 
alcohol in carrion. And if it were nor for 
the nitrogen, which is also present, creating 
a strong odor, no doubt the distillers would 
be gathering up the old dead carcasses at 
the bone-yard, and distilling the juice out 
of them to sell to the topers ! The alco- 
hol, thus obtained, would be the same as 
any other alcohol. But the odor has here- 
tofore been too strong an argument even 
for distillers. 

Am I stating all this on my bwn author- 
ity, solely? — and the authority of Dr. 
Wood, author of the Dispensatory? — and 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 35 

the authority of Dr. Munroe, of Hull Med- 
ical College? You who think so will 
please turn to the Chemistry, of Baron Von 
Liebig, one of the ablest chemists that the 
world has yet produced, and acknowl- 
edged as authority in the science of Chem- 
istry everywhere. Turn to his book of 
Chemistry, and you will find these words : 
n Fermentation is nothing else but the pu- 
trefaction of a substance containing no 
nitrogen. Ferment or yeast is a substance 
in a state of putrefaction, the atoms of 
which are in continual motion." 

There you have the words of the great 
German chemist, Baron Yon Liebig, and 
higher authority in Chemistry cannot be 
found. 

Let me repeat his words : " Fermentation 
is nothing else but the putrefaction of a sub- 
stance containing no nitrogen." 

While the vegetable lives, it reaches out 



36 alcohol; 

its roots and branches, and gathers food and 
nourishment from the earth and the air, and 
forms these into healthy compounds, by 
which its life and strength are built up. 
Fermentation or decomposition is the oppo- 
site of this, during which the life and 
strength of the vegetable or animal returns 
to the earth and air, scattering, tearing 
down, and dissolving strength. ~f. 

Liebig says that w fermentation and putre- 
faction are stages of the return" of the 
nourishments of the vegetable to their orig- 
inal sources. 

Life builds up ; putrefaction tears down. 
Life gathers in strength; fermentation, or 
putrefaction, scatters and destroys that 
strength. " Life," says Liebig, " is opposed 
to putrefaction." And he further states that 
"■ alcohol cannot be evolved from the sugar 
of vegetable matter until after vinous fer- 
mentation sets in," which is the " death, or 



ITS NATUKE AND EFFECTS. 37 

decomposition of vegetable matter." Thus 
Liebig authorizes all that I have said con- 
cerning fermentation. 

Alcohol is, in fact, the death principle of 
the vegetable matter, out of which it is 
evolved; or the resulting principle of de- 
composition. It is found nowhere in living 
and growing nature; but everywhere in 
dying and dead nature. 
• And now you have before you the author- 
ity of one of the greatest chemists in the 
world, — and not disputed by any other 
t responsible chemist, — Baron Von Liebig, 
of Germany. 

Will the time ever come, when the German 
drinkers of beer and ale will listen to the 
learning and wisdom of. their own immortal 
% Liebig ? Will the proud day of redemption 
from drunkenness ever come? Let us 
watch, and pray, and labor, while we pa- 



38 ALCOHOL ; 

tiently wait, and fondly hope for the com- 
ing of that day. 

Again, if your liquid, after it has under- 
gone vinous or alcoholic fermation, is found 
to contain twenty per cent., or more than 
twenty per cent., of alcohol, it will keep in 
any climate, at any temperature, and will not 
change to vinegar, even though exposed to 
warmth at 90 degrees or more, and exposed 
to the air; and even though you should 
shake it, and jolt it, and churn it about, it 
will remain as it is, — alcoholic or intoxicating 

liquor. 

« 

But if the intoxicating liquor contains less 
than twenty per cent, alcochol, it will not 
keep in all climates, but is liable to turn 
to vinegar at anytime, either from the 
warmth of the liquor, or in moving it from 
place to place. 

But the juice of the grape, after it has 
fermented, only contains twelve or fourteen, 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 39 

or at most but fifteen per cent, alcohol ; and 
therefore cannot bear exposure to the sum- 
mer weather, nor transportation from one 
place to another, without turning to vine- 
gar. 

Hence more alcohol has to be put into it, 
besides what it already has, so that it will 
have over twenty per cent, alcohol before 
it starts on its journey. This is a necessity, 
and cannot be avoided. Hence every gal- 
lon of the pure wine, shipped from a foreign 
country to this, or from one part of this 
country to another, has more alcohol added 
to it before it starts. All this foreign wine 
has put into it beet whiskey, or alcohol, or 
brandy (and hence called brandied wine), 
to make it stronger. And this, too, before 
it starts from its native hills. 

And now the question arises, where do 
they get this extra alcohol, brandy, whiskey, 
etc., with which they strengthen the wines 



40 ALCOHOL ; 

of commerce? And this question brings 
me to Distillation. 

To answer it, we must know something 
about what is done at the distillery. 

And here again, I quote from the United 
States Dispensatory: "Alcohol, being the 
product of vinous fermentation, necessarily 
exists in all vinous liquors, and may be ob- 
tained from them by distillation." 

Or, in plainer language, there is alcohol 
in all fermented or decayed juices and 
liquids, and the way to get it out is to dis- 
til it out. Now, what is distillation? Let 
me tell you as plainly as I can. 

If you take a kettle with any kind of liq- 
uid in it, and put it on the stove to boil, and 
then cover the kettle with a tight lid, leav- 
ing only one small hole in the lid for the 
steam to escape ; and then take any kind of 
a long, hollow pipe or tube, and fasten one 
end of it over the hole in the lid, so as to 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS 41 

make the steam run clear through the long, 
hollow tube before it can get out, and while 
it is o-oins: through be cooled and condensed, 

coo 7 

— and you have distillation. 

If you put clear water in the kettle, and 
make the steam go OYer that way, through 
the pipe, and cool it, and catch it in 
a dish as it runs out of the pipe, the 
steam thus cooled and caught is called dis- 
tilled water. 

Now, if you put two liquids in the kettle 
together and boil them, the lighter one will 
turn to steam first, and will go through the 
pipe, get cool, and go out first; and the 
heavier one will stay in the kettle. For 
instance, if you put fermented grape-juice, 
— the same as fermented wine — into the 
kettle, and boil it, the alcohol that is in the 
juice, being the lightest, will go over 
through the pipe first, cooling as it goes, 
and be caught in a bucket at the other end of 



42 ALCOHOL ; 

the pipe. What you have caught is only 
the steam of boiling, fermented grape-juice. 
That is all. 

But that is brandy. The steam of boil- 
ing grape-juice that has been fermented or 
rotted is brandy ! Hold your hands over 
a kettle of boiling wine — fermented wine, 
I mean — until the steam has wet them, 
and your hands are wet with brandy ! 

It is not a very mysterious process; not 
hard to learn. All you have to do is to 
boil the liquid, and catch the steam. 

Now, what is there in the steam, as it 
goes over the pipe, or worm? 

The alcohol, being the lighter liquid, 
starts over first, but it takes a little water , 
along with it, and a little of the juice of the 
grape ; and that is pure brandy. Alcohol, 
with a little water and a little grape-juice 
left in it, is pure brandy. 

The bulk of the water, and all of the 



ITS NATURE AXD EFFECTS. 43 

grape-seeds, and skins, and dirt, and some 
of the other putrefying matter, stay in the 
kettle, and you can empty them out and 
throw them away. 

So now you understand distilling. You 
merely heat up the liquid so as to make it 
into steam, and then drive the steam 
through a lorg pipe, which cools it, into a 
dish at the other end. That is all. And 
when you have distilled over all the best of 
your liquid, you can throw the rest away. 
The lighter one always goes over first, 
and the heavier one stays in the kettle. 

You can distil fermented apple-juice in 
the same way, and then you have apple- 
brandy, or apple- whiskey. 

You can distil fermented peach-juice in 
the same way, and then you have peach- 
brandy. 

And so, from every fermented or rotted 
liquid that you can think of you can distil 



44 ALCOHOL ; 

out the strongest of it, — the alcohol, — and 
throw the sediment away, or feed it to the 
hogs. Thus I have told you, in common 
language, how to distil. I shall try in all 
these lectures to use nothing but plain 
common language, that the people can all 
•understand. 

Sometimes they redistil the liquor ; that 
is, after they have emptied the kettle, or 
boiler, they pour the liquor back in, and 
steam it through the pipe the second time. 
This time all the alcohol goes over, and 
only a little bit of the water; and the 
rest of the water is left in the kettle to 
throw away ; and of course the liquor is 
stronger, because it has all its alcoholic 
strength, and less water. This is called 
rectifying. When you distil a liquor the 
second time, you rectify it. Sometimes 
they rectify a liquor two, three, or four 
times ; and every time there is a little water 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS 45 

left in the boiler to throw away ; and of 
course the alcohol grows stronger or purer 
every time. 

And now you know how to make alco- 
hol. Take any fermented liquor, and distil 
it, and rectify it two or three times, and you 
have what is called pure alcohol. 

It is not pure, however ; because there 
is a little bit of water left in the very 
strongest alcohol, and also a little bit of 
fusil oil left in, that you cannot distil out, 
nor rectify out. So says the Dispensa- 
tory. 

These distilling-kettles may be of any 
and all sizes, from a common coffee-pot up 
to a meeting-house ; and you can distil 
from a quart a day, up to a thousand bar- 
rels a day. 

Sometimes, when they rectify a liquor, 
they put other things in, to give it a new 
taste, that was not in it when it was fer- 



46 alcohol; . 

mented and distilled. For instance, they 
mix turpentine with distilled spirit, and 
then rectify it, and after that they call it 
common gin. That is the way gin is 
made. Distilled spirits, rectified with 
turpentine. That is what is the matter ! 

Did you know that when you were 
drinking pure gin, you were drinking a 
compound of decayed sugar, stagnant water, 
and turpentine. 

Fellow-citizens, time will not allow me 
to complete this argument to night. It is 
necessary for us to be thorough in order 
that you may be entirely convinced. To- 
morrow night we shall close this investiga- 
tion of alcoholic liquors, — their strength 
and composition, — present our authorities, 
and draw our conclusions. 



WINE. 

Let poets sing to the praise of wine, 
In their sweetest tones and songs ; 






ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 47 

For the juice of the grape — from the Hand Divine — 

To the lips of the pure belongs. 
But let them sing of wine that is new, 

Of wine that is not decayed, 
Of wine that is fresh as the morning dew, 

From the stem in the arbor-shade. 

But while they sing to the praise of wine, 

That is new, and pure, and sweet, 
And tune their harps to the fruitful vine, 

And their carols of joy repeat, 
Let them not forget that when decayed, 

Fermented or decomposed, 
It has the great and brave betrayed, 

And their brightest prospects closed ! 

Let them not forget that a demon dire, 

Lies hid in fermented wine, 
That will burn their health with a lurid fire, 

And hasten their life's decline ; 
That will fill the body with sores and pain, 

And cause them sorrow and woe; 
And darken the mind with thoughts profane, — 

A fearful and dangerous foe! 

Let them not forget that the hour of mirth, 

When fermented wine was used, 
Has cast a shadow over the hearth, 

And the hearts cf the lored ones bruised: 



48 ALCOHOL. 

For the demon fierce, in the sparkling glass, 
Is known by his deeds of yore ; 

He has mown his followers down like grass, 
And he'll do as he's done before ! 



II. 



The Nature of Alcohol — Where does it come 
from? — how can you get it?— how much is 
there in the llquor? — what is it good for? 
— And what is it? 

(concluded.) 



II. 

As we shopped last night in the middle of 
our argument on the nature, strength, and 
sources bf alcoholic liquors, let us complete 
the subject to-night. 

And now, as you all fully understand what 
is meant by fermenting, and distilling, and 
rectifying, we are prepared to quote again, 
and quote largely from the United States 
Dispensatory : — 

"Alcohol, being the product of vinous 
(or alcoholic) fermentation, necessarily ex- 
ists in all vinous (or fermented liquors), 
and may be obtained from them by distilla- 
tion. 

"The distilled product of vinous (or fer- 
mented) liquors forms the different ardent 
spirit (or proof spirit) of commerce. 

51 



52 ALCOHOL ; 

"When obtained (distilled) from (fer- 
mented) wine, it is called brandy. 

"When obtained from fermented (cane) 
molasses, it is called rum. 

" When obtained from fermented cider, it 
is called whiskey (or apple brandy). 

"When obtained (distilled of course) 
from fermented malt-barley, it is called 
whiskey. 

" When obtained from fermented rye, it 
is called whiskey (rye whiskey) . 

"When obtained from fermented corn, it 
is called whiskey (corn whiskey). 

"When obtained from malted corn, fer- 
mented and distilled, it is called Bourbon 
whiskey. 

"When obtained (distilled, remember) 
from fermented malted-barley, mixed with 
rye-meal and hops, and afterwards rectified 
with juniper berries (or seeds of the red 
cedar) , it is called Holland gin. 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 53 

* When obtained from fermented malted 
barley, mixed with rye-meal, or potatoes, 
and afterwards rectified from turpentine, it 
is called common gin. 

'•When obtained from fermented rice, it 
is called arrack." 

Remember that I am still quoting from 
the United States Dispensatory, — an au- 
thority that none will deny. 

''These (distilled) spirits are of different 
strengths, that is, contain different propor- 
tions of alcohol. Common proof spirits (or 
ardent spirits) are variable. 

"Gin contains 51.60 per cent, of alcohol. 

" Brandy contains 53.68 per cent, of alco- 
hol. 

"Rum contains 53.68 percent, of alco- 
hol. 

"Irish whiskey contains 53.90 per cent, 
of alcohol. 



54 ALCOHOL ; 

"Scotch whiskey contains 54.32 percent, 
of alcohol." 

You will observe that this is a pretty full 
list of the principal distilled spirits of com- 
merce, made and sold everywhere. More 
than half alcohol ! 

Dr. Wood has not given us the strength 
of arrack, nor beet spirit; but they are 
about the same as gin, — a little more than 
half alcohol; and diluted alcohol is half 
alcohol and half pure water. 

Thus you have the relative alcoholic 
strength of all these spirits. 

But although the strength of all these 
liquors is thus established bj^ chemistry, 
they hardly, ever — in fact — correspond 
with the standard thus fixed. Pure alcohol 
is the only one that you can depend upon at 
all. The, rest of them are hardly ever what 
they pretend to be. 

Dr. Wood tells the druggists and physi- 



ITS NATUKE AND EFFECTS. 55 

cians not to use the common ardent spirits 
of commerce, because they are " so variable 
in their strength," and also " because of their 
impurities." 

They have, as you have perhaps already 
noticed, four different names, all meaning 
about the same thing : Distilled Spirits, 
Rectified Spirits, Ardent Spirits, and Proof 
Spirits. 

It matters little which of the four names 
you use, for they are all distilled, most of 
them rectified, all of them ardent, and all of 
them half, or a little more than half, alcohol ; 
the remaining half being either water, or 
water mingled with other liquid substances, 
found in the various vegetables, fruits, and 
grains out of which they are all made. 

All of them are made out of something 
that contains the sweet principle (sugar or 
saccharum), made to ferment, decompose, 



56 alcohol; 

or, as Liebig has it putrefy, before they are 
distilled and rectified. 

And here is perhaps the best place we 
shall find in this lecture to give a compara- 
tive table of the strength of all the various 
fermented liquors, from which all these ar- 
dent or proof spirits are distilled. 

Some of these have their strength estab- 
lished by nature, when left as nature made 
them, and others are merely conventional. 
Those made from grains are merely conven- 
tional, because a bushel of malted barley- 
mash may ferment in five gallons of warm 
water, or ten gallons of warm water, of 
fifteen gallons of warm water, and will 
make the beer quite strong or weak, just as 
you desire ; but those made of the juice or 
vegetables and fruits — if no water is 
poured into the juice, and none boiled 
away — are established by nature, andean 



ITS NATURE AXD EFFECTS. 57 

vary only according to the kind and quality 
of the vegetables and fruits used. 

Those that are made of grains are called 
Malt Liquors, or Grain Liquors, or Brewed 
Liquors. 

Those that are made of juices or fruits 
are called Wines, or Fruit Liquors, or Na- 
tive Juice Liquors 

And both of these classes, collectively, 
have several names by which they are known 
in commerce. 

They are called Fermented Liquors, 
Mild Alcoholic Liquors, Weak Alcoholic 
Liquors, Vinous Liquors, Undistilled Liq- 
uors, or Ancient Liquors. 

It matters little by which of these names 
you call them, because they are all fer- 
mented only, and all contain a moderate 
proportion of alcohol, — and therefore vi- 
nous ; but perhaps the first name given it 
the best, — Fermented Liquors, — because 



58 - alcohol; 

by this you can distinguish between them and 
the other class of liquors, that are made out 
of this class, that are first fermented and 
then distilled. 

Beers, ales, and porters are made largely 
from barley and rye, but may be made from 
almost any kind of grain that contains starch. 

The following table shows their strength 
when made according to the best approved 
rules, and unadulterated ; and when not 
weakened by pouring water in, nor strength- 
ened either by boiling water out, or pour- 
ing alcohol in, and before they are distilled. 

THE STRENGTH OF FERMENTED LIQUORS. 

Pale ale contains five percent, of alcohol. 
Common ale, six per cent, of alcohol. 
Premium ale, seven per cent, of alcohol. 
Small beer, five per cent, of alcohol. 
Lager beer, six per cent, of alcohol. 
Strong beer, seven per cent, of alcohol. 



ITS NATUBE AND EFFECTS. 59 

Porter, seven per cent, of alcohol. 

Cider, six to seven per cent, of alcohol. 

Rhubarb wine, seven to nine per cent, of 
alcohol. 

Cherry wine, seven .to nine per cent, of 
alcohol. 

Strawberry wine, eight to ten per cent. 
of alcohol. 

Currant wine, eight to ten per cent, of 
alcohol. 

Raspberry wine, nine to eleven per cent. 
of alcohol. 

Blackberry wine, nine to eleven per cent. 
of alcohol. 

Peach wine, nine to eleven per cent, of 
alcohol. 

Grape wine, twelve to fourteen per cent, 
of alcohol. 

This list, although not complete, is suffi- 
ciently comprehensive to embrace most of 



60 ALCOHOL ; 

the fermented liquors now in use. The 
grape wines are the strongest of them all, 
and afford the greatest variety. 

Some of these grape wines are named 
after the cities and countries where they are 
supposed to be made ; as Port wine, named 
after the city of Oporto, in Portugal; 
Madeira wine, named after the island of 
Madeira, where it is supposed to be made. 
French wines are made in France, — sup- 
posed to be, — and Spanish wines in Spain, 
etc. Others are named after the grape they 
are supposed to be made of; as, for in- 
stance, Catawba wine from the Catawba 
grape ; Isabella wine, from the Isabella 
grape, etc. They are called Native wines, 
if made in this country, and Foreign wines 
if brought here from abroad. 

I shall not take the trouble to give the 
fancy names to the various mixtures and 
compounds that are made out of the fer- 






ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 61 

merited liquors, and combined with distilled 
liquors. Their name is legion : Apple 
Jack, Black Strap, Ginger Wine, Bitters, 
and a host of others. 

Some of these are very strong, and some 
of them are very weak. 

It will be observed that none of these 
fermented, vinous, or ancient liquors con- 
tain as high as twenty per cent, alcohol ; and 
therefore cannot bear exposure to the air, 
to warm weather, nor to transportation. 
To keep well, they must — 

1st. Be kept air-tight. 

2d. Be kept cool ; and, 

3d. Be kept still. 

If any two of these three points are neg- 
lected, they soon spoil. Sometimes if one 
of these points is neglected, they will spoil. 
These liquors must be used up, soon after 
exposure, or they become worthless. 

All these ciders and wines, or sweet 



62 ALCOHOL ; 

juices, could have been kept before they 
had fermented at all — and hence before 
there was any alcohol in them —just as well 
as now, — 

1st. By boiling them down to one-half 
or one-third of their bulk. 

2d. By heating and canning them. 

3d. By sinking them in cold water, or 
setting them in an ice-house, where they 
would be constantly exposed to cold. 

But now, since they have fermented, the 
only way to make them keep well, and at 
the same time expose them to warm weather 
and transportation, is to pour distilled 
spirit in upon them until the whole bulk 
shall be over twenty per cent, alcohol ! 

We hear people talk about "pure, 
unadulterated Port wine; m "pure, unadul- 
terated Madeira wine," etc. Now, whenever 
those wines do happen to come over to us 
"pure and unadulterated," — which circum- 



ITS NATUEE AND EFFECTS. 63 

stance is very rare indeed, as I shall show in 
another lecture, — whenever they do happen 
to get here K pure," somehow or other they 
always happen to contain from twenty-one 
to twenty-three per cent, alcohol. Every 
time. Have never been known to fail. • And 
the Distilled Spirit usually put into these 
"pure, unadulterated foreign wines," to in- 
increase their strength is beet whiskey or 
brandy. 

But we are not blessed, however, with very 
many gallons of this kind of "pure, unadul- 
terated foreign wine ;" for when we think we 
are getting this kind, we almost always get 
a worse one, — drugged and adulterated, 
which I shall consider in another lecture. 

I wish now to make an important remark 
about all these fermented liquors, — the 
whole class of them ; and that is that their 
alcoholic strength is arranged on a sliding 
scale. 



64 alcohol; 

If they are boiled down one-fourth before 
they are allowed to ferment, it is plaii] that 
they will have the same amount of alcohol 
(from the same amount of sugar) in a less 
quantity of water ; and therefore must be 
stronger. In this way their strength may 
vary, all the way from their own per cent, 
up to twenty per cent, alcohol. 

They cannot go higher than twenty per 
cent., because, if they boil them too much, 
you make them into syrup, or fluid extract, 
and then they will not ferment at all. 

The ancients never had any liquor 
stronger than twenty per cent, alcohol ; be- 
cause they cannot be made stronger than 
that, unless you distil them, or put distilled 
spirit into them. 

And the ancients did not understand dis- 
tilling. It is not quite six hundred years, 
since the process of distilling was first found 
out. 



ITS NATURE AXD EFFECTS. 65 

But in these days the dealer puts distilled 
or rectified spirits into theru, just to suit his 
own taste and fancy 3 and to suit the taste 
and fancy of his customers. 

You can buy wine which contains, — 
20 per cent, alcohol, 
or 25 " 
or 30 K 

•or 35 « * " 
or 40 K 
or 45 tt 
or 50 K 
or 55 * 
just to suit your notion ! 

And they will call it Port wine, or Ma- 
deira wine, or Sherry wine, or Champagne 
wine, or Portuguese wine, or Spanish wine, 
or French wine, just as you may desire. 

And you can buy beer, and ale, and por- 
ter, and cider in the same way. 

You pass a law that no license shall be 



66 ALCOHOL ; 

granted to sell ardent spirits or proof 
spirits ; but grant them a license to sell beer 
only, and from that hour the drinker can 
get beer of any strength he desires. The 
dealer just simply pours distilled or rectified 
spirit or alcohol into his beer until his cus- 
tomer is satisfied. That is all. It is no 
trouble. Easily done. And then, besides, 
he knows his beer will keep. It won't 
spoil on his hands. 

If you want beer that is ten per cent, 
alcohol, you say you will "take it square." 
If you want beer that is fifteen per cent, al- 
cohol, you call for "good old beer." If you 
want beer with twenty per cent, alcohol, you 
call for beer " with a feather in it." If you 
want twenty-five per cent, alcohol, you call 
for beer " with a straw in it." If you want 
thirty per cent, alcohol, you call for beer 
"with a stick in it;" thirty-five per cent., 
beer " with a fly in it ;" forty per cent., beer 



ITS NATURE AXD EFFECTS. 67 

f with a stone in it ;" forty-five per cent, , beer 
"with a broken back;" fifty per cent., beer 
"that is just a little bit lame ;" fifty-five per 
cent., beer, which is stronger than old Scotch 
whiskey, you call for beer " with the devil in 
it!" And very well named, too. For in 
such beer as that you will find him — horns 
and all ! 

A gentlemen, the other day, saw his little 
daughter dipping her doll-baby ? s dress into 
a tin cup, and inquired, "What are you 
doing, my daughter?" "I'm coloriug my 
doll's dress red, pa." "Coloring your doll's 
dress, red, — what with?" "With beer, 
pa!" "With beer! What put such a fool- 
ish notion into your head, child? You 
can't color red with beer." "Yes, I can, 
pa ; because ma said it was beer that col- 
ored your nose so red ! " And the gentle- 
man had business that required him to be 
down town immediately. 



68 alcohol ; 

So much is certain, — you can buy beer 
of any alcoholic strength that you may de- 
sire ; and ale, and porter, and cider, and 
wine are sold in the same way. You hear 
such expressions as these, in all towns 
where license is granted to sell beer, or ale, 
or wine, or cider only : Beer, " sweet- 
ened with a maul and wedge ! " Beer, 
ff stirred up with a poker ! " Beer, " with a 
black dog's paw it in it," etc. 

They tell me that the greatest fit of 
laughter that the devil ever enjoyed, in all 
his life, and in which he nearly burst his 
satanic sides with excessive joy, was when 
he heard of a Temperance town that was so 
green and stupid as to grant a license to 
one of his imps to sell "wine and beer, 
only ! " And they say that all his staff- 
officers joined in the laugh, and they gig- 
gled, and laughed, and haw-hawed, until 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 69 

all the hollow deeps of hell resounded with 
uproarious joy. So they tell me. 

Beer only ! Beer, "with a broken-back !" 
Beer, "sweetened with a maul and wedge !" 
Beer only! What foolish folly! What 
stupid stupidity ! What nonsensical mock- 
ery ! 

But I intend to propose a plan, however, 
in one of these lectures, by which even that 
stupid plan can be carried out successfully. 

A town that grants such a license as that, 
under present arrangements, soon finds it- 
self in the same kind of a fix that the woman 
did who hated dogs. She wanted her hus- 
band to sell their old dog, or give him 
away, or kill him. She could not bear the 
sight of a dog. One night he came home, 
and said he, — 

"Wife, I've sold that old dog ! " 

"Have you? Good, good! I'm awful 
glad of it ! What did you get for him? " 



70 ALCOHOL ; 

"I got ten dollars." 

"Did you? Good! I'm so glad you've 
sold him ! Did you get your pay?" 

"Yes, but not in money." 

" Not in money ! What did you get for 
pay?" 

"I toot it in pups, at two. dollars a 
piece ! " 

So with a town that grants license, for 
beer only. They have sold one dog, but 
they have got five instead ! 

Now, is alcohol good for anything? and, 
if so, what is it good for? 

The United States Dispensatory says that 
"Alcohol is useful as a solvent." Solvent ! 
What is a "solvent"? I will tell you as 
plainly as I can. Anything that will dis- 
solve another thing is a solvent. For in- 
stance, water will dissolve sugar; there- 
fore water is a solvent for sugar. Again, 
water will dissolve salt; therefore, again, 



ITS NATUKE AND EFFECTS. 71 

water is a solvent for that article. Water 
is a solvent for many articles. But alcohol 
is also a solvent for many articles that wa- 
ter will not dissolve. For instance, alcohol 
will dissolve camphor, which water will not 
dissolve. Alcohol will dissolve a great 
many different articles. The Dispensatory 
says, "It is capable of dissolving a great 
number of substances ; as for example, sul- 
phur, phosphorus, iodine, ammonia, po- 
tassa, soda, lithia, the organic vegetable 
alkalies, urea, tannic acid, sugar, mannite, 
camphor, the resins, the balsams, the vola- 
tile oils, the soaps, and many other sub- 
stances." 

If you put wild-cherry bark into a kettle 
with a little water, and stew it, you will 
only get a little of the strength of the wild 
cherry. But if you put a little alcohol in, 
along with the water, you will immediately 



72 alcohol ; 

get all the strength of the wild cherry, and 
then you will have, — ■• 

1st. The strength of the wild cherry; 
and 

2d. The water ; and 

3d. The alcohol ; and 

4th. The rough bark, which is worthless, 
all in the kettle together. But you need 
not keep them all together in that way. 
You can distil off the alcohol by itself, and 
keep it to use again. Then you can strain 
out the rough bark by itself, and throw it 
away. Then you will have left in the ket- 
tle only the water and the strength of the 
wild cherry. These you can boil down un- 
til it is very strong with the strength of the 
wild cherry, almost thick, like syrup, so 
that it will keep in any climate. Now, 
what is this wild cherry-juice, which you 
have boiled down until it is so thick and so 
strong? It is the fluid extract of wild 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 73 

cherry. And it will keep, without any 
alcohol in it, just as well as with it. 

Molasses is the fluid extract of maple, 
and cane, and sorghum, and you know that 
molasses will keep without putting alcohol 
into it. 

It is not necessary to make the tincture 
of maple, and the tincture of cane. They 
will keep as they are. 

All the fluid extracts will keep as well as 
the tinctures. ■ 

But a great many roots, and herbs, and 
barks will not give up their strength, un- 
less you, in this way, use alcohol as a solv- 
ent. But you can take the very same alco- 
hol that you used in getting the strength 
out of the wild cherry, and put it into the 
kettle again, along with sarsaparilla roots 
and water, and get out all the strength of 
the sarsaparilla. Distil off the alcohol , by 
itself, and set it away, to use again. Then 



74 ALCOHOL ; 

boil down the sarsaparilla juice until it is 
thick and strong, and you have the fluid ex- 
tract of sarsaparilla, and you have the alco- 
hol left yet. 

There are hundreds of substances, very 
useful as medicines, that will not give up 
all their strength, unless you use alcohol as 
a solvent. So the Dispensatory is right, 
when it says, "Alcohol is useful as a solv- 
ent." But it does not take very much for 
that purpose ; because, if you are careful to 
distil it all back every time you use it, you 
can use the very same alcohol forty differ^ 
ent times, to get the strength out of forty 
different-roots, barks, and herbs. 

So we have learned that " alcohol is use- 
ful as a solvent ; " and that we could not 
make medicine so fast, nor so successfully, 
without it. But we need not leave it in the 
medicine. We can distil it out every time, 
so as to leave the medicine by itself. Fluid 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 75 

extracts will keep in any climate, for a 
great number of years. And if you boil 
down the fluid extracts a little stronger, until 
they get thicker, you make them into solid 
extracts ; the same as sugar, which is the 
solid extract of cane and maple ; and cur- 
rant-jelly, which is the solid extract of cur- 
rants ; or tar, which is the solid extract of 
pine. 

No use of putting alcohol into medicines 
in order to make them "keep," as they will 
keep just as well without it, as with it. 
The United States Dispensatory, therefore, 
by which all the regular druggists, and reg- 
ular chemists, and regular physicians are 
guided, recommends it as being " useful as 
a solvent" in making medicine. 

The "American Dispensatory," written 
by Dr. John King, and by which all the 
eclectic and botanic physicians in the land 



76 ALCOHOL ; 

are largely guided, says it is useful only as 
a solvent. 

So does the "British Dispensatory," of 
England, and the "Dublin Dispensatory," of 
Ireland, by which books all the druggists, 
and all the chemists, and all the doctors are 
guided, in the whole British empire, through- 
out all her colonies. So does the French 
Dispensatory, which is standard authority 
with all the chemists, druggists, and physi- 
cians in the whole Empire of France. And 
so of the Dispensatories of Germany, Italy, 
and Russia. Open one of these dispensa- 
tories, and it says, "Useful as a solvent." 
Open another, and it says, " An excellent 
solvent. " Open another, and it says, " Much 
valued as a solvent, in the preparation of 
medicines." 

And I want to tell you something else, 
that these dispensatories say about alcohol. 
They all say it is poison ! 



ITS NATUKE AND EFFECTS. 77 

The United States Dispensatory says, ff It 
is a very powerful diffusible stimulant," and 
speaks of it as being a poison, which causes 
disease and death ! " 

The American Dispensatory says,." Un- 
diluted, it is a. powerful irritant poison, 
rapidly causing intoxication, and in large 
quantities, death ! " 

The British Dispensatory says it is a poi- 
son. 

The Dublin Dispensatory says it is a poi- 
son. 

The French Dispensatory says it is a poi- 
son. 

And all the Dispensatories that I have 
been able to examine say it is a poison. 

Dungleson's Medical Dictionary says it is 
a poison. 

Copeland's Medical Dictionary says it is a 
poison. 

And I do not know of a respectable or 



78 ALCOHOL ; 

standard medical authority anywhere that 
does not class it among the poisons. Some 
of them call it a " narcotic poison ; " some 
of them call it " an irritant poison ; " some 
of them call it a w vegetable poison." But 
most of them agree that it is all three to- 
gether, — a narcotic, irritant, vegetable poi- 
son : narcotic in its tendency, irritant in 
its action, and vegetable in its origin. 

Professor Silliman, in his Chemistry, says 
"It is a powerful and dangerous stimulant." 

Besides these Dispensatories and Medi- 
cal Dictionaries — which are respected as 
authority everywhere — there are many 
prominent medical writers who class it as a 
poisofi, and who have given us the particu- 
lars of its poisonous effects. 

Dr. Munroe, of England, says: "Alco- 
hol is a powerful narcotic poison ; and, if a 
large dose be taken, no antidote is known." 
And again he says : " A small quantity of 



ITS NATUKE AND EFFECTS 79 

pure alcohol, injected into the veins of an 
animal, has caused immediate death ; show- 
ing alcohol to be a dangerous and deadly 
poison." 

Dr. Elmer, of New York, says it is an 
w irritant, narcotic poison ; and when taken 
into the stomach in large doses, no antidote 
is known*" 

Dr. Carpenter, author of Carpenters 
Physiology, read by medical men every- 
where, says it is a "dangerous poison." 

Dr. Orfila, in his writings, says the same. 

Dr. Pereira, in his writings, says the 
same. 

So do Dr. Lees, and Dr. Christison, 
and Dr. Chambers, and Dr. Beck, and Dr. 
Taylor, and a host of others, and many of 
them among the ablest physicians now 
living. 

Indeed, I do not know of a responsible 



80 ALCOHOL ; 

medical writer who dares to say it is not a 
poison. 

I have quoted from dispensatories, and 
chemistries, and the medical dictionaries, 
and referred you to the standard medical 
writers of the age. Do you want higher au- 
ity? Higher authority cannot be found; 
more reliable books are not written. 

Those who refuse to believe these au- 
thorities must be sceptical indeed, since 
they are in harmony with nature, w T hich is 
the handwriting of the living God. 

One more fact, and I shall close this in- 
vestigation of the nature of alcohol ; and 
that is, thaf nearly all of these authorities 
that I have been quoting say that " the best 
alcohol contains a little fusil oil," which 
is "a far more dangerous and deadly poison 
still." True, there is only "a little fusil 
oil " in the alcohol ; but even that little is 
w dangerous and deadly." 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 81 

I shall not have time to quote from more 
than one authority on this point, and that 
one shall be the United States Dispensa- 
tory. And if any of you think I am not 
quoting correctly, just go to the drug-store 
and borrow the book (for it will cost you 
ten dollars to buy it), or to one of the 
physicians in town, who will be glad to 
lend it to you. Turn to the article on fusil 
oil, at page 77, and you will find these 
words : " This oil is always present in the 
products of alcoholic fermentation. It is 
an ingredient in the ardent spirit obtained 
from various grains, but is most abundant 
in that produced from fermented potatoes. 
In grain spirit it is present in the propor- 
tion of Ubout one part in five hundred parts, 
by measure," 

Various plans have been adopted to take 
the fusil oil out of liquors, and they have 
been partially successful. A large part of 



82 ALCOHOL ; 

it is taken out by the process of rectifying, 
and mpre by filtering. But a little of it 
still remains, after they have done their 
best to take it out. It is never all taken 
out. Dr. Wood says, "The best alcohol 
contains fusil oil." 

This oil is sometimes called grain oil, be- 
cause found so largely in spirits made from 
rotted grain; sometimes called potato oil, 
because so abundant in spirits made from 
fermented potatoes ; and is also and more 
properly called amylic alcohol, because it 
contains amyl, and in other respects has the 
same original ingredients with alcohol itself, 
though in different proportions. 

" It is composed of 

10 parts carbon, 
12 " hydrogen, and 
2 " oxygen, 
and is, in fact, a hydrated oxide of amyl. 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 83 

As shown by experiments on inferior ani- 
mals, it is an active, irritant poison." 

It is a poison so deadly in its nature, that 
the doctors do not use it for any purpose. 
It was, at one time, used for lamp oil; but 
is now used chiefly by abandoned, heartless 
scoundrels, in adulterating liquors, and is 
not used by respectable men, nor for any 
honest purpose. 

And now, fellow-citizens, what have we 
learned from these two lectures on the na- 
ture of alcohol? 

We have learned that alcohol is the intox- 
icating ingredient in all pure intoxicating 
liquors, whether they are only fermented, 
or w T hether they are first fermented and 
afterwards distilled. 

We have learned that alcohol is nowhere 
to be found in living and growing nature, 
throughout all her wide-spread fields, but 
only in dead and decaying nature. 



84 ALCOHOL ; 

We have learned that the sweet juices of 
fruits, before they are fermented, can do no 
harm, because they contain no alcohol ; but 
are healthy and nutritious, — the best part 
of the fruit, — and are among the choice gifts 
that the All-wise Father has given to his 
children. 

We have learned that alcohol is found in 
liquids, only after they have begun to fer- 
ment or decompose. 

That fermentation is the same thing as 
decay, decomposition, and putrefaction. 

That alcohol is the resulting death-prin- 
ciple of decaying nature, whenever it con- 
tains, sugar in a liquid state. 

That the reason why rotting vegetable 
matters do not have the same smell as other 
carrion is because they do not happen to 
contain nitrogen. 

That all substances that contain sugar 
may be converted into alcohol by this pro- 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 85 

cess of decay ; but that they can be kept 
from decay, pure, sweet, and healthy, by 
using a little care in boiling, canning, and 
sealing them up from the air. 

That all grains, and fruits, and vegeta- 
bles, that contain starch, may have the 
starch converted into sugar by diastes, and 
then converted into alcohol by fermentation 
or putrefaction ; and therefore the utter 
folly of trying to discourage the raising of 
orchards and vineyards. 

That the alcoholic strength of all undis- 
tillecl intoxicating liquors is arranged on a 
sliding scale, so that beer, ale, porter, cider, 
and wine can be made to contain any per 
cent, of alcohol desired. 

That undistilled intoxicants have not suf- 
ficient alcoholic strength to stand exposure 
to the air, heat, and transportation, unless 
additional alcoholic strength is given them 
so as to raise it to at least twenty per cent. 



86 f ALCOHOL ; 

That this is done by pouring into them 
distilled or rectified spirits or alcohol. 

That none of the wines of commerce — 
not even the. best — contain less than twenty 
or twenty-one per cent, alcohol. 

That the alcoholic strength of ardent or 
distilled spirits, although established, is 
hardly ever adhered to. 

That alcohol is itself a narcotic and irri- 
tant poison. 

That the best of alcohol contains fusil oil, 
— a still more deadly poison. 

That alcohol is useful in the preparation 
of medicine as a solvent only. 

And that we have learned these facts 
from the highest written or printed author- 
ities on the whole earth, — the standard 
works of chemistry and medicine, adopted 
by the wisest nations. 

All these tell us that alcohol is poison. 
And many a victim to its wiles, fallen pre- 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 87 

maturely by its terrible effects, has reached 
out a nervous hand to his mourning friends, 
and whispered sadl} r , with his last farewell 
to earth, in broken accents, K Poison ! 
poison ! " 

HOW THE VICTIMS DIE. 
Shun, oh, shun the poison cup ! 

Shun, oh, shun fermented wine ! 
It burns the soul of manhood up, 

And mars the human form divine. 
Greet not the envenomed monster. No ! 
Greet not the fiend who lures to kill ; 
He lays his fond admirers low ; 
They sleep in every vale and hill. 

Avoid the dens where wine is sold ; 

Avoid the path that drunkards tread ; 
These places make the youthful old, 

And lay them,, early, with the dead. 
Resist the charms they fain would throw 

Around the mocker, with a lie ; 
"Resist the charms ; for those who go 

Within his magic circle, die. 

They die in want, they die in pain, 
And woes no tongue has power to tell ; 



88 ALCOHOL. 

Bereft of friends, their honor slain, 
Within the prison's gloomy cell. 

Their comrades laugh to see them fall, 
And laugh to see them die alone, 

Exposed, beside some ruined wall, 

Their death-bed hard and chilly stone. 

They started on life's happy morn, 

As proudly forth as you or I, 
With souls as great, as nobly born, 

With loves as fond, and hopes as high; 
But few will care, in kindness now, 

Since drink has darkened them in gloom, 
To wipe the death-damp from their brow, 

Or plant a flower upon their tomb. 



III. 



Alcohol — What Effect has it upon the Hu- 
man Body? — Does it ether cause Disease and ♦ 
Death? — What Part of the System does it 
Injure? — How axd Why? 



III. 

Chemistry has analyzed everything that 
men use for food ; and it has found out 
exactly what food is made of. Chemistry 
has also analyzed the human body itself, so 
as to ascertain what is needed to supply any 
injury or waste. It is found that the body 
needs and requires just what the food con- 
tains. 

Now, what does the body need ; and what 
does the food contain? 

I quote* from Dr. Munroe, who says, 
"Every kind of substance employed by man 
as food, consists of sugar, starch, oil, and 
glutinous matters, and the glutinous mat- 
ters are composed of fibrine, albumen, and 
casehje." 

Alcohol does not seem to be in the list, 

91 



92 alcohol; 

and therefore cannot be food. Fruits and 
grains contain these substances, and so do 
the fresh juices ;* but all these substances 
must first decay before alcohol is obtained 
from the fruits and grains. Alcohol is 
evolved, not from food, but from decayed 
food. Alcohol contains none of these sub- 
stances, and therefore cannot be food. 

" There is more food in one bushel of 
barley, than there is in 12,000 gallons of 
the best beer." So says Baron Von Lie- 
big. 

But alcohol is not food, for several other 
reasons. All food, when taken into the hu- 
man stomach, is digested, and transformed 
into something that will renew and build up 
the body. When we eat bread and meat 
and potatoes they are digested and help to 
supply the wear and tear and waste that are 
constantly going on, and give new strength 
to the body. Some of the food goes to 



ITS NATUKfe AND EFFECTS. 93 

build up the bone, some to make muscle, 
some to supply heat, some to make nerve 
and brain, and some to supply the various 
juices of the system. But alcohol does none 
of these things, and therefore cannot be food. 
It passes out of the body, just as it goes in, 
unchanged, undigested alcohol ! 

And now let us see if we can find out the 
reason of this fact. 

If you dip a feather into pure alcohol, and 
then open your eye, and lay the feather flat 
on your eyeball, how quick it will smart 
and burn, and how quick you will have 
to take it off again ! The eye, with all its 
lids and coverings that the alcohol has 
touched, then tingles and smarts, and be- 
comes red and bloodshot, and swells, and 
the tears commence running, and the eye 
tries in every way to drive out the alcohol ! 
Three or four such applications will make 
you have sore eyes for several days ; and 



94 ALCOHOL ; 

you will not have to repeat the operation 
many times to destroy the eyesight al- 
together. Now, why ? Because tbtQ alcohol 
irritates, burns, and poisons the tender coat- 
ings of the eye. It is an irritant, burning 
poison. 

Again : If you fill your mouth full of 
alcohol, and try to hold it there, the lining 
of your' mouth begins to burn and smart, 
and pain you, so that you will very soon 
have to spit it out. Examine your mouth 
then, and you will find it very red and 
bloodshot or, what is the same thing as 
bloodshot, the small veins of the mouth are 
congested, or filled full of blood, and the 
whole. Hiring of the mouth is inflamed and a 
little sore. And w r hy? Because the ten- 
der inside of the mouth is irritated and 
scorched and poisoned by the alcohol. 
That is the reason. 

Fill your eyes with pure water, and it 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 95 

will not make them smart, nor inflame 
them. Swimmers open their eyes in the 
water when they swim, both in fresh and 
salt water, and they are not harmed. Fill 
your mouth with water, and it will not be 
burned, nor will its veins be congested 
with blood. 

Lay a piece of nice clean beef-steak on 
your eyeball, and let it lay there, and it 
will not inflame the eye. If it should hap- 
pen to be already inflamed and sore, the 
beef-steak will feel cool and soothing to it ; 
and even if the beef should happen to be 
a little saltf , no injury will follow. Fill 
your mouth with beef-steak, and it is not 
going to hurt you ! Put a bread-and-milk 
poultice right into your open eye, and let 
it stay there all night, and your eye is not 
injured ! Many do that to cure sore eyes. 
Put a large bread-and-milk poultice into 
your mouth, and it will not poison you ! I 



96 ALCOHOL ; 

have tried it, and recommend it as a pleas- 
ant experiment ! 

I have made these comparisons to show 
the difference between the action of an irri- 
tant, or poison, on the tender membranes 
of the body, and the action of food on those 
same tender membranes. 

But the lining membranes of the stomach 
and bowels and all the inside works of the 
human body are tender and easily injured, 
the same as the coatings of the eye and the 
linings of the mouth. 

These coatings and linings are all of the 
same material, and whatever irritates and 
injures one,, will irritate and injure them 
all. 

Hence, whenever alcohol touches the in- 
terior parts of the human system, it irri- 
tates and burns and congests and inflames 
them, and makes them very active to throw 
off or get rid of the intruder ! Or, in 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 97 

other words, it stimulates them to unnat- 
ural activity, — makes them active in try- 
ing to get rid of the poison, — alcohol! 

Why should we fill our stomachs with a 
poison liquid which is strong enough to 
"dissolve sulphur, and dissolve iodine, and 
dissolve ammonia, and dissolve potash, and 
dissolve camphor, and dissolve resin, and 
dissolve all the organic vegetable alkalies? " 
What is the use of it ? As well drink, nitric 
acid, or sulphuric acid, or chloroform, or 
the oil of vitriol, or kerosene, or any other 
deadly poison. For God made one just as 
much as he, did the other. There is noth- 
ing in the normal nature of man that calls 
.for any of these poisons. 

The United States Dispensatory says this 
irritating poison " is a very powerful diffu- 
sible stimulant." Anything that increases 
the activity is a stimulant. Anything that 
stimulates the nerves and brain is a narcotic 

7 



98 ALCOHOL ; 

stimulant. Anything that stimulates the 
heart and arteries is an arterial stimulant. 
But this is a "diffusible stimulant." That 
is, it diffuses itself everywhere, through the 
whole body, and stimulates every part that it 
touches. 

It would be just as correct to say that it 
irritates every part that it touches, for it is 
an irritating stimulant. 

I do not know that I can better illustrate 
what is meant by a "very powerful dif- 
fusible stimulant" than by supposing a 
case. 

Suppose that fifty men were standing in 
a row, just a few feet apart, passing cannon- 
balls to each other. One takes up the iron 
ball, tosses it to the next, who catches and 
tosses it to the next, and so on, until it 
passes down to the other end of the line, 
and is thrown down. And then another 
ball is passed down, and another and an- 



ITS NATUKE AND EFFECTS. 99 

other, and all the men work easily, delib- 
erately, and steadily as the balls are passing.' 
But pretty soon the second man cries out, 
"Hot ball! burning my hands! take it, 
quick ! " And the next one catches it, and 
calls out, "Hot ball ! Here ! Hot ball ! " 
And the next one that gets it instantly yells 
out, "Hot ball ! Make haste ! " And so 
on, all the way down the line, each one is 
in haste to get rid of it, and says, V Con- 
found the ball ! " " Scorching hot ! " "Blis- 
tering my hands ! " " What is the use of 
sending hot ones?" "Take it!" "Hurry!" 
But before they have time to cool their 
hands or heal them, down comes another 
ball, hotter than ever, and one screams out, 
"It's burning hot J Take it ! " And the 
next, " For God's sake, take it ! " And the 
next, " Hotter than ever, hyer!" And an- 
other, "My hands are blistered, hyer!" 
And still another, "Can't hold it, hyer!" 



100 ALCOHOL ; 

One man along down the line, calls out, 
. " Tell that first man not to send any more 
hot balls!" And others say, "He's deaf! 
He's deaf! He cannot hear us ! " " We'll 
motion to him," screams anothef. "He's 
blind ! He's blind ! He cannot see us 
motion!" "He is picking up hot balls 
with glass gloves. He does not feel their 
heat ! " " We shall have to take them as 
they come ! " And while they are yet talk- 
ing, down comes another, seething, fiery 
hot, and the men with seared and blistered 
hands take them and pass them on, hot as 
they come. 

But you say, "Why don't the men drop 
the hot balls, as a dog does a hot potato?" 
Ah, but they cannot drop them. A man 
may now and then " drop " one of them into 
his bosom, or into his pocket, or lay it on 
his foot ; but it will burn a sore wherever 
it stops. 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 101 

Once the alcohol having passed into the 
mouth, and down the throat, it has to pass 
on down the whole line ; or if it stops it 
burns a sore. The hand passes it into the 
mouth, and into the stomach it goes. The 
stomach calls out " Hot ball ! " and throws it, 
as quick as possible, into the blood. The 
blood says, fr Hot ball take it ! " and swiftly 
throws it into the heart. The heart pumps 
it into the arteries, and the arteries rush it 
into the brain, and skin, and everywhere, 
trying to drive it out. The pores of the 
skin open, and say, "Throw it out here ! " 
The lungs open, and hurl some of it off 
with the breath. The liver takes a part of 
it, and the kidneys take some of it, and 
pass it through the urine. The whole sys- 
tem makes haste to get rid of it, and does 
get rid of it. It is thrown out of the sys- 
tem just as it went in, — undigested, — un- 
changed, — alcohol. But part of it remains 



102 ALCOHOL ; 

in the system, — lodges in the various or- 
gans of the body. What about that part? 
Further on I will tell you. 

We have now learned what is meant by a 
"diffusible stimulant." Something that 
stimulates to unnatural activity everything 
it touches. And " alcohol is a very power- 
ful diffusible stimulant," and an "irritant 
narcotic poison." 

But perhaps you think I am stating this 
on uiy'own authority solely. Not entirely 
so. I shall quote a few authorities. 

Dr. Henry Munroe, who is a professor 
and lecturer in a medical college, at the 
city of Hull, in England, says, "Alcohol, 
whether taken in large or small doses, im- 
mediately disturbs the functions of the 
body and the mind." And again he says, 
" The only influence of alcohol on the stom- 
ach is that of an irritant." 

There it is in a few words. It irritates 



ITS NATURE AXD EFFECTS. 103 

the stomach. That is what it does to it, — 
irritates it. And if you were to call it an 
irritant, instead of a stimulant, it would be 
just as well named. 

Dr. Munroe also says, "As soon as the 
alcohol has been absorbed into the blood it 
is carried by the tide to the heart, the inner 
surface of which organ, disturbed by the 
presence of the alcohol, pumps away so 
much the faster to get rid of the intruder." 
To get rid of what? " The intruder." Ah, 
it is not food, then, but only an intruder ! 

Dr. T. K. Chambers, who is physician to 
the Prince of Wales, the heir-apparent to 
the throne of England, — and therefore sup- 
posed to be the first-class physician, says, 
" It is clear that we must cease to regard 
alcohol as, in any sense, an aliment (a food) , 
inasmuch as it goes out (of the body) as it 
goes in." 

Ah ! It does not change into bone. It 



104 ALCOHOL ; 

does not help to build up muscle, nor 
nerve, nor brain, nor any of the juices. 
But simply an irritant which goes plunging 
through the body, singeing and burning till 
it gets out, like the hot balls passed along 
the line of men. Let me quote from the 
United States Dispensatory : — 

"In a diluted state, alcohol excites -the 
system, renders the pulse full, and gives 
additional energy to the muscles, and tem- 
porary exaltation to the mental faculties. 
As an article of daily use, alcoholic liquors 
produce the most deplorable consequences/ 
Besides the moral degradation which they 
cause, their habitual use gives rise to dj r s- 
pepsia, hypochondriasis, visceral obstruc- 
tions, dropsy, paralysis, and not unfre- 
quently mania. 

w Its effects as a poison. When taken in 
large quantities, alcohol, in the various 
forms of ardent spirit (or proof spirit) , pro- 



ITS NATUKE AND EFFECTS. 105 

duces a true apoplectic state, and occasion- 
ally speedy death." 

Here you have Dr. Wood : " In a 'di- 
luted state, it produces the most deplora- 
ble consequences. Moral degradation ! " 
and a number of terrible diseases of the 
body. 

Dr. Rudolph Masing, one of the ablest 
physicians of Germany, has prepared a new 
test for alcohol. It is this: — 

" Just put a solution of bichromate of 
potash and sulphuric acid into a glass tube, 
leaving one end of the tube open. The 
color of this solution is red ; but a very 
little alcohol will turn it to emerald green. 
Sober men breathed into it, but their breath 
had no effect. A drunken man breathed 
into it, and it instantly turned green. 
Young ladies should have this test-tube 
filled and ready, and let their lovers breathe 
into it. If the test-liquid turns green, tell 



106 ALCOHOL ; 

him that you cannot appreciate his color. 

Make him wait till he ripens. 

But what does this test prove ? It proves 

there is alcohol in the drunkard's breath. 

And what does that prove ? It proves that 

alcohol goes out of the body just as it goes 

in, — without changing or digesting; and, 

therefore, cannot be food, nor can it aid in 

building up or renewing any part of the 

body. It is still alcohol. 
I 

Dr. Lallemand, of France, and Dr. 
Perrin, of France, both of whom stand at 
the head of their profession in that great 
empire, assisted by the great French 
chemist, Duroy, have been trying many 
experiments by the same chemical test. 

A man, who drank a pint and a half of 
wine at half past ten o'clock, breathed into 
the test-solution at noon, and it turned 
oreen in two minutes. The same at one 
o'clock. At two o'clock it turned green in 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 107 

four minutes. At five o'clock it turned 
green in fifteen minutes. At six o'clock it 
made but a slight change. At seven o'clock 
no change at all. 

Dr. Magendie, more than fifty years ago, 
and Dr. McNish, and others, by the aid of 
other tests, proved that alcohol passed out 
of the system from the lungs and pores as 
it went in ; and they proclaimed that fact 
to the world. Now it is proved beyond 
a doubt. Therefore no part of it is food, but 
only an irritant, scorcher, poisoner, — a thing 
that inflames whatever part it touches while 
rushing through the body, and causes terri- 
ble ulcers and putrefying sores wherever it 
stops. 

By the same tests, also, these gentlemen 
find that alcohol passes out through the 
skin. They made a dog drink whiskey, — 
remember they had to make him do it 
against his will, because he knew bet- 



108 ALCOHOL ; 

ter than to drink of his own free will,— 
and, after he was drunk some hours, the 
perspiration from his skin turned the test- 
liquid green. Thus nature throws off the 
biggest part of the alcohol that is taken in 
at the stomach. But, alas ! it is not all 
thrown off. Some of it finds a lodgment 
and remains, causing the drunkard pain 
and sorrow. 

These gentlemen next examine the urine 
of the drunkard, and find alcohol there. 
Then they cut open dead drunkards, and find 
alcohol in the blood, alcohoi in the heart, 
alcohol in the liver, alcohol in the kidneys, 
alcohol in the bowels, and alcohol in the 
brain. 

They found it everywhere in the system, 
causing sores and diseases ; but the liver 
suffered the most from it, and the brain 
next ; the kidneys and blood next. And, 
what is more, they found the stomach and 



ITS NATUKE AND EFFECTS. 109 

other organs where the alcohol was and 
had been, irritated, congested, inflamed, 
sore, burned, charred, ulcerated, and dis- 
eased, by the "irritant, narcotic poison." 
They found that those who drank the most 
were injured the most ; but those who had 
only drank moderately of beer, ale, or wine, 
all injured, in proportion to the amount of 
alcohol they had consumed. 

Now, what do you think of alcohol ? No 
wonder the drunken sot has a fiery red 
nose. No wonder his eyes are bleared and 
bloodshot. No wonder his face is bldteted 
and his arm trembles. He is literally 
burned out ! And what there is left of him 
is only the ulcerated and diseased form of 
what might have been a man. 

Let me quote a little more testimony on 
this point, from the United States Dispen- 
satory. I like to quote from these solid old 
authors, because the people are going to 



110 alcohol; 

believe them. The article I quote was 
written many years ago, by the wise old 
Dr. George B. Wood. " After death, abun- 
dant evidence is furnished of the absorp- 
tion of the alcohol" (into the system). By 
Dr. Percy it has been detected in the 
brain ; by others, in the ventricles (of the 
heart), and by Dr. Wright, in the urine. 
There is testimony that has never been dis- 
puted. And here is more. A man fell 
suddenly dead in the streets of London, 
and was carried into Westminster Hospital 
and dissected. And the doctors found a 
quantity of w limpid fluid " pushed in upon 
the brain ; and this limpid fluid was found 
to be one-third gin. They smelt it, and 
tasted it, and then lit a match and burnt it. 
It was gin, which is more than half pure 
alcohoL 

Thus the remains of the dead record the 
history, character, and habits of the soul 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. Ill 

that filled them. The biography of the 
man is written on the organs of his body, in 
burning and eternal letters, by every act of 
his daily life ; and the follies and vices of 
the drunkard are stamped in his silent 
ashes. 

But there are those who suppose that, al- 
though aclohol is not food, still, in some 
way or other, " it aids digestion and is good 
for the stomach." This is again a mistake. 
The reverse is true. It prevents the diges- 
tion of food, and thus brings disease upon 
the body. 

Let me prove this proposition to you. 
Dr. Figg, of Scotland, had two healthy 
dogs of the same size. He cut up four 
ounces of cold roast mutton into square 
chunks for each of them. He gave them 
the meat at the same time. He then forced, 
an ounce and a half of distilled spirit down 
the throat of one of the dogs only. After 



112 alcohol; 

three hours he killed both dogs. The dog 
that drank the ardent spirits had the meat 
left in his stomach just as it was when he 
ate it — undigested. But the other dog's 
stomach was empty, — the meat having 
been all properly digested. It prevented 
digestion in the dog's stomach. Why not 
in the human's ? 

Let me give you another experiment now, 
— this time a human experiment. 

The laborers in a shop near Edinburgh 
were paid off on Saturday, just after din- 
ner. They rushed into the saloons near by, 
and got drunk. They stayed drunk, and ate 
nothing until noon the next day, when their 
money gave out. Then, w r hen they were 
beginning to get sober, they had the head- 
ache and felt sick at the stomach, and sent 
for Dr. Figg. He gave them each an 
emetic, to make them "heave up Jonah." 
In a few moments they did heave up Jonah ; 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 113 

but Jonah was their Saturday's dinner. 
Alcohol helped their digestion with a ven- 
geance. Healthy food in a healthy stom- 
ach will digest in two or three hours. Their 
dinners did not digest in twenty-six hours. 
Why? Because the alcohol in the liquor 
they drank prevented digestion. That was 
the reason why. 

Once more. I had a patient once, who 
ate some cucumbers and onions along with 
his dinner. He then went off and got on a 
" bender," and kept drunk for two days, eat- 
ing nothing. He became sick as well as 
drunk, with severe pains in his stomach, 
and sent for me to come and sober him up. 
I gave him a vomit, and in a few minutes 
the cucumbers, and onions paid us a visit. 
They had been forty-eight hours digesting, 
and then did not digest. Why ? Because 
liquor prevented digestion, and made the 
man sick. You have seen instances of this 

8 



114 alcohol ; 

kind yourselves, and if you will take a sec- 
ond thought, you will all of you know that 
it does not aid, cannot aid digestion, but it 
directly prevents digestion, and is therefore 
an injury to health. 

Good medicine is sometimes put into 
liquor, which may to some extent counteract 
the evil effects of the liquor ; but how much 
better it would be to take the medicine by 
itself, and leave the liquor alone ! Hops by 
themselves are a tonic, and a useful medi- 
cine. Malt, by itself, is chiefly sugar, and 
therefore useful as food. But when they 
are " soaked in warm water, and allowed to 
rot," they cease to be food entirely, and 
lose nearly all their tonic effect, and become 
a mild alcoholic liquor, which is injurious. 

Some people, who think they are very 
smart, will go and take a glass of beer, ale, 
porter, wine, or brandy, "just to assist 
digestion." If they knew one-fourth part I 



ITS NATURE AXD EFFECTS. 115 

as much as they suppose they do, they 
would know that these liquors prevent 
digestion, just in proportion to the amount 
of alcohol they contain. 

Dr. Sewell says, "Man, by nature, has no 
taste nor desire for alcohol ; it is as unnat- 
ural and averse to his constitution as it is to 
the horse or the ox ; and there is no apology 
for its use by man that does not equally 
apply to the brute." 

And Di\ Sewell is right. Every word 
of that quotation is true, and cannot be 
disproved. 

Xow, let me give you a little, slight touch 
of the science of physiology and chemistry. 

When you eat, there is a juice comes 
into your mouth, from the glands of the 
mouth, called saliva. When you have 
swallowed the food into the stomach, there 
is another juice flows in from other glands, 
called gastric juice. When the food starts 



116 alcohol; 

into the bowels, still another juice flows in, 
called pancreatic juice. These three juices 
all combine together and completely digest 
or solve the food. It requires about one 
quart of these juices every day for diges- 
tion. They are solvents, and will dissolve 
the food you eat. If you analyze these 
juices, you will find that the strong solvent 
principle in all of them is pepsin. So that 
pepsin is w r hat dissolves and digests the 
meat and bread, and all the food you eat, 
of whatever kind. You cannot digest any 
food unless you have plenty of pepsin in 
the stomach. Pepsin is a powerful solvent. 
But so is alcohol a powerful solvent. 

Now, suppose the two solvents get into 
the .stomach together. What will be the 
consequence? The consequence is, the two 
solvents are bound to fi^ht. w When Greek 
meets Greek then comes the tug of war." 
One solvent is going to dissolve the other 



y 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 117 

solvent. One of the two solvents has to 
perish. Which one will perish? Which 
will be victorious, and kill the other? 

I will tell you : Alcohol dissolves pepsin, 
and therefore stops digestion in an instant 
of time. And as a consequence, digestion 
cannot go on so long as alcohol remains in 
the stomach. 

When the alcohol is driven out of the 
stomach, and new pepsin comes in, then 
digestion can go on, and not till then. You 
may talk about "beer to promote digestion," 
and "ale to assist digestion," and "wine to 
help digestion," until old age overtakes 
you ; but there stands a scientific fact, 
which you can neither alter nor remove, — 
alcohol dissolves pepsin. There it stands, — 
a scientific principle, — a scientific fact. 

That principle, or scientific fact, is de- 
duced from the eternal laws of nature, of 
which God is the author; and while God 



118 alcohol; 

and his works remain, that fact will remain 
unchanged. 

Viewed in the light of science, does it not 
look supremely ridiculous for a man of com- 
mon, ordinary intellect to talk about drink- 
ing alcoholic liquor to " assist digestion"? 
If you happen to meet such a man in your 
travels, just please to ask him for me, if you 
please, quietly, if it would not be a profit- 
able transaction for him, to sell whatever he 
may possess of this world's goods, and buy 
a gimlet, in order that he may have a small 
hole bored in his head so as to let the sim- 
ples out? They used to bore for the 
hollow-horn ; he should, by all means, be 
bored for the simples. 

But seriously, this thing of drinking "for 
digestion " has become so common, that it 
is time for somebody to speak the truth 
upon the subject boldly. The truths of 
chemistry, when once discovered, are ever- 



ITS NATTJKE AND EFFECTS. 119 

lasting. The science of chemistry has be- 
come a mighty power in this land of learn- 
ing; and who knows but it will yet solve 
the knotty riddle of drunkenness, and work 
out the great problem of the temperance 
reform ? 

"Ah, but, Dr. Story, hold a moment! 
You are giving all this about pepsin on 
your own sole authority, are you not?" 

Xot entirely so. I am happy to say that 
I am backed up by the highest authorities, 
and these statements proved by a multitude 
of experiments. I will mention a few. 

Dr. Munroe, of the Hull Medical School, 
has made a number of experiments, of which 
I shall mention one. He mixed some bread 
and meat in a vial along with some gastric 
juice. He then corked the vial up, and set 
it in a little box of warm sand, and kept it 
about as warm as the healthy stomach would 
be, and occasionally shook the box, so as to 



120 ALCOHOL ; 

imitate the motion of the stomach. He also 
fixed another vial, in the same way, only in 
the second vial he put a little pale ale along 
with the bread and meat and gastric juice. 

In the first vial, the food was digested in 
from six to eight hours. But in the second 
vial, which contained the ale, the food 
would not dissolve at all, though he kept it 
warm for several days. Why? Because 
the alcohol in the ale dissolved the pepsin 
in the gastric juice, and prevented diges- 
tion. 

My second authority is Dr. Dundas 
Thompson, who says that "alcohol when 
added to the digestive fluid (the juices just 
named) produces a white precipitate, so 
that the fluid is no longer capable of digest- 
ing food." 

Dr. Todd and Dr. Bowman say that "the 
use of alcoholic stimulants retards diges- 
tion by coagulating the pepsin, — &n essen- 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 121 

tial element of the gastric juice, — and 
thereby interfering with its action." 

Dr. Figg says that " if a man after din- 
ner, drinks two or three glasses of spirits, 
the gastric juice in the stomach will be neu- 
tralized." 

I have now given you the names of seven- 
teen prominent medical writers, all of 
whom base their knowledge on actual ex- 
perience. 

One more authority on this point, and 
then I shall take up another division of the 
subject. And this time a high American 
authority, — Dr. Thomas Sewell, of Colum- 
bia Medical College, of Washington City, 
who has been a prominent medical man be- 
fore the country for nearly half a century, 
as a practical physician and teacher of 
pathology and medicine. He says, "There 
are some substances upon which the gastric 
juice has no action, or, if any, it has not the 



122 alcohol; 

power of converting them into nutriment ; 
and alcohol is one of them." 

Now you have authority — and good 
authority, — besides the authority of Dr. 
Story. And all these authorities go to 
show that alcohol never helps digestion but 
always hinders, retards, and prevents diges- 
tion. They show that no amount of it, 
however small or however great, can assist 
digestion, but must always injure it. 

They show that a glass of pale ale or 
small beer, containing only five per cent, 
alcohol, and a glass of Scotch whiskey, 
which contains fifty-four per cent, alcohol, 
have exactly the same effect upon the human 
system, in proportion to their alcoholic 
strength. 

Anything that retards or prevents diges- 
tion must injure the whole body, because 
indigestion is itself the prolific cause of 
many diseases. Food ought not to lie in 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 123 

the stomach undigested, for so many hours 
and days. 

Dr. Sewell says : R Digestion is one of 
the most important of all the animal econ- 
omy, indeed it is indispensable to the due 
performance of all the other functions ; 
consequently when this becomes impaired 
the whole system languishes, and all the 
other functions become, sooner or later, 
affected al$o." Besides this, the great 
waste of the juices containing pepsin will 
bring on diseases. During one day a 
healthy set of glands furnish the stomach 
with nearly a quart of juice. Now, if you 
drink a few glasses of liquor and destroy 
that juice, then the glands must furnish 
more. When you destroy that with still 
more drink, they furnish still more of it. 
But by and by, the glands being overtaxed, 
become exhausted and fail to supply the 
necessary juice. Then chronic indigestion, 



124 alcohol ; 

and other diseases, and death must fol- 
low. 

And now I am ready to speak of the 
various diseases of the body, caused by the 
habitual use of alcohol. And I propose to 
get right down to the work. In this divis- 
ion of the subject I propose to show you 
some things in the way of alcoholic diseases, 
compared with which, all that have been no- 
ticed heretofore are but toys and playthings. 

And first, of the stomach. 

More than fifty years ago, there was a 
surgeon in the United States army, who 
made a great many examinations into a liv- 
ing stomach. It happened in this way. A 
stout, healthy boy, about eighteen years of 
a g e > by the name of Alexis St. Martin, a 
Canadian, was shot in the stomach with a 
shot-gun. The discharge tore quite a large 
hole clear through into the stomach, so as 
to let all the food fall out in front. Dr. 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 125 

Beaumont dressed the wound, and it finally 
healed up. But when it healed up, it left 
a hole clear through, about an inch in diam- 
eter. This hole had to be plugged up, or 
corked up, with a silver cork, or plug, so 
as to keep the food in his stomach when he 
eat. To keep this plug in its place, the boy 
had to always wear a belt around his chest. 
The boy got well and lived a great many 
years, but always had to wear the belt and 
silver plug. Whenever you wanted to look 
into the inside of the stomach, all you had 
to do was to get him to lie down on his 
back, and slip the belt down a little , and 
take the plug out, and just look right in, 
and see his bread and dinner. Wouldn't it 
be handy, if we all had just such a little 
hole in our stomachs? so that whenever 
we eat too much, we could reach right in 
with our thumb and finger, and claw out a 
part of it. Some of us would have to hire 



126 ALCOHOL ; 

an active man to take it out half as fast as 
we put it in. 

Dr. Beaumont used to look into the 
young man's stomach every day ; and con- 
tinued to do so for more than fourteen 
years. 

And the doctor hired the young man to 
go with him to Washington City, and to stay 
with him there, on purpose to try experi- 
ments with food and drink in his stomach. 
The inside of a healthy stomach has a light- 
pink color, as all doctors well know. 

{See Sewell's Plates, No. 10 

And as Alexis St. Martin was a healthy, 
stout boy, his stomach was pink-colored also, 
at first. But by and by he got so he liked 
liquor ; and, as he had grown to be a man, 
the doctor had to let him do as he pleased. 
After . he had been drinking pretty hard for 
a few days, Dr. Beaumont looked into his 



ITS NATURE AJST> EFFECTS. 127 

stomach, and found it — no longer pink, 
but fiery red, and very much congested or 
inflamed. TVhen St. Martin would quit 
drinking for a few days, the doctor would 
look in, and find the stomach pink-colored, 
healthy, and all right again. 

Dr. Beaumont wrote a book all about 
it long ago, before the Temperance Eeform 
began. Out of that book I make this quo- 
tation : — ' 

"The free use of ardent spirits, wine, 
beer, or any of the intoxicating liquors, 
when continued for some days, has invaria- 
bly produced those morbid changes in St. 
Martin's stomach." 

Ah ! invariably done it. And the doctor 
made these kind of examinations for four- 
teen years. Well, that is something; but 
I have something more. Dr. Thomas Sew- 
ell, who was then a young doctor, used to 
go and look into St. Martin's stomach some- 



128 ALCOHOL ; 

times along with Dr. Beaumont. After- 
wards Dr. Sewell got into a big practice, 
and got to be President of Columbia Col- 
lege at Washington City. Sometimes men 
would die drunk, or get killed while they 
were drunk, and Dr. Sewell would have 
them carried up into his college, and he 
would cut them open, and look into their 
stomachs and bowels and livers and 
hearts. And as time rolled on, Dr. Sewell 
kept on dissecting and looking into drunk- 
ards' stomachs, and examining all their in- 
sides, until he has spent more than forty 
years, and looked into the inside works of 
more than three hundred drunkards. And 
what does he say? He has published a 
book, giving an account of alcoholic dis- 
eases ; and I shall quote. 

He says that in the " stomach of the 
temperate drinker, — the man who takes his 
grog daily, but moderately, or sips his wine 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 129 

with his meals," the lining membrane al- 
ways becomes red and inflamed, and that 
"the blood-vessels of the inner surface are 
so far enlarged, as to be visible (to the 
naked eye), and distended with blood." 

(See SewelVs Plates, No. 2.) 

Dr. Sewell says that " in the stomach of 
the habitual drunkard, or hard drinker, the 
mucous or internal coat is in a state of irri- 
tation, with its blood-vessels, which are 
invisible while in a healthy state, enlarged 
and distended with blood, similar to the 
rum-blossoms sometimes seen on the face of 
the drunkard ; and very frequently corroded 
with small ulcers, which are covered with 
white crusts, with the margins of the ulcers 
elevated and rugged." 

(See SewelVs Plates, No. 3.) 

He says that, "after a debauch of several 



130 ALCOHOL ; 

days, the internal or mucous surface of the 
stomach of the drunkard shows a high de- 
gree of inflammation, extending over the 
whole surface, changing its color to deep 
red, and in some points exhibiting a livid 
appearance." 

(See SewelVs Plates, No. 4.) 

He says that, with a great many " drunk- 
ards, or habitual hard drinkers, the stomach 
becomes thickened, and has large corroding 
cancers upon it." 

(See SewelVs Plates, No. 5.) 

He had a chance to dissect a large num- 
ber of men who died of delirium tremens, 
and one or two of them prominent states- 
men ; and he says that he always found 
such stomachs " very much thickened and 
swollen, leaving but a small cavity for food, 
and this lined with a dark-brown flaky 



ITS NATURE AXD EFFECTS. 131 

substance, which was really grumous blood, 
that had oozed out of the sores and cancers 
of the inflamed surface, and when this 
flaky substance was removed, the stomach 
looked quite dark, like an incipient state 
of mortification." 

(See Seidell's Plates, No. 6.) 

And again he says, "If the morbid effects 
of intemperance are in some degree various 
in different individuals ; if they are not de- 
veloped with the same degree of power 
and rapidity in one case as in another, — it 
is nevertheless true that alcohol is a poison 
forever at war with man's nature, and in all 
its forms and degrees of strength produces 
irritation of the stomach which is liable to 
result in inflammation, ulceration, and mor- 
tification, a thickening and induration of its 
coats, and, finally, scirrhus, cancer, and oth- 
er organic affections ; and it may be asserted 



132 ALCOHOL ; 

with confidence, that no one who indulges 
habitually in the use of alcoholic drinks, 
whether in the form of wine or the more 
ardent spirits, possesses a healthy stomach." 

Now, what do you think of the effects of 
alcohol upon the human stomach? Does 
it improve the condition of the stomach 
much ? 

Does it assist digestion very much ? We 
fail to see it. If you say it does, you as- 
sume to know more than Dr. Sewell, who 
has spent his life in finding out. 

The stomach is the great central office of 
the digestive system, and if that suffers, of 
course all the other organs must suffer ! 
The whole man must suffer. 

Let us hope that the people will learn 
these facts, and then act in accordance with 
what they have learned. Let us trust in 
the righteousness of our cause, the intelli- 
gence of the people, and our own powers 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 133 

of reason. Let us have faith in mankind, 
and confidence in public opinion ; for these 
shall one day be the arbitrators of our 
cause. 

LET US TRUST IN THE PEOPLE. 

Now hundreds of thousands are falling around, 
And the stars of our circle are under the ground, 
Cut off in their vigor of manhood and prime, 
And swept from the world and the borders of time; 
Swept from the world by the Demon of Drink, 
Deeply down in oblivious billows to sink. 
Lost to themselves and their loved ones before, 
Their final departure but few can deplore. 

But millions on millions are waiting the dawn, 
When all of these causes of woe shall be gone; 
They are hopeful no longer to suffer delay, 
But anxiously watching to welcome the day ; 
Anxiously watching and waiting for day, 
When the sunshine of knowledge around them shall play, 
When the drunkard's diseases and ills shall be o'er, 
And men shall drink poison, to burn them, no more. 

Will the time ever come ? Will the day ever break ? 
Will the masses, misguided, their vices forsake ? 
And learn to be strong, to be hearty and hale, 



134 ALCOHOL. 

Like the oak in the forest, unharmed by the gale ? 
Will the masses get knowledge, learn wisdom, and live ? 
The knowledge and wisdom that wiser men give ? 
Will they learn to give heed to the laws of their health ? 
The laws that bring vigor, and pleasure, and wealth ? 

Let us trust in the people. They're willing and strong 
To banish a custom they've learned to be wrong. 
Let us hope that the cause which we know to be right 
They will gladly endorse, if we give them the light ; 
Let us wait for the time when the people shall rise, 
And claim — and claim justly — the laws that are wise ; 
But while we are hoping, and waiting the hour, 
Let us labor to teach them; — for knowledge is power ! 



IV. 



Alcohol — What Effect has it. upon the Hu- 
man Body? — Does it ever cause Disease and 
Death ? — What Part of the System does it 
Injure? — How and Why? 

(concluded.) 



IV. 

This is perhaps as good a time and place, 
as we shall find in which to explain the se- 
cret of the drunkard's insatiable appetite, — 
his gnawing, craving, burning desire for 
more liquor. Why this ungovernable thirst 
for more ? 

The reasons are plain. * Did any of you 
ever have inflamed sore eyes ? And do you 
remember how they itched and tingled and 
how you wanted to claw right into them 
with all your finger-nails and scratch them ? 
How you wanted to irritate them ? When 
you had rubbed and scratched and irritated 
them, they would, for a moment, feel easier 
— feel quiet and more comfortable. But 
do you not know that that same scratching, 
and gouging, and irritating, only inflamed 

137 



138 alcohol ; 

them more, and made them worse after- 
wards, and harder to cure? 

Now, the stomach, when once inflamed 
and sore from any cause, itches and tingles 
and burns in the same way, and feels un- 
easy, and wants to be scratched and rubbed 
and irritated. And when more alcohol is 
taken, which rubs and irritates the sore, it 
feels, for the time, more easy and quiet and 
satisfied. But the liquor thus taken to 
satiate this morbid burning for more, only 
irritates the sore, and inflames the stomach, 
and makes it worse and harder to heal, and 
more difficult to cure. Very few — old 
topers even — drink liquor because they 
love it. They drink it because it seems to 
allay this morbid itching and burning in 
the stomach. Anything that would irritate 
and scratch the inside of the stomach would 
allay that raging thirst the same as alcohol. 
Any other irritant poison would answer 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 139 

the purpose, and frequently does answer, as 
we shall show in another lecture on adulter- 
ations. 

To cure this craving appetite, the victim 
should stop drinking at once, and totally 
abstain from all kinds of irritants, and re- 
strict himself to a diet that will soothe and 
heal the soreness within. When the soreness 
gets entirely well, the appetite will entirely 
cease; and not before. Food that is easily 
digested will irritate the stomach but little, 
and therefore such food is always the best 
for the inebriate. 

Once more to the task. Once more let 
us trace the havoc and ruin that alcohol 
brings upon the various organs of the body. 
After the stomach, what next? 

The bowels, being a continuation of the 
digestive system, become inflamed and 
thickened, and sore and ulcerated, the same 
as the stomach. All the remarks heretofore 



140 alcohol ; 

made about the stomach apply also to the 
bowels, throughout their entire length. 
Thirty feet of sore, inflamed, ulcerated, and 
maturating bowels. What folly to burn 
one's insides in such a way, for the phantom 
pleasure^ of the wine-cup ! 

The liver becomes diseased also, and in- 
jured more than the stomach, — worse than 
the bowels. 

Its effect upon the stomach and bowels, 
as we have seen, are terrible indeed ; but 
Drs. Lallemand and Perrin, after a multi- 
tude of examinations, find the liver to' be 
the most affected of all the organs, and the 
brain next. Letting the amount of alcohol 
found in the blood of the drunkard be rep- 
resented by the figure one, they found in 
the substance of the brain one and one-third, 
and in the liver one and one-half. They 
found that the habitual drinker never has a 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 141 

healthy liver, but always inflamed and 
ulcerated, or else hardened and sore. 

Listen to Dr. Sewell. "Alcohol pro- 
duces a strong and speedy effect upon the 
liver. Its secretion often becomes changed 
from a bright yellow to a green or black, 
and from a thin fluid to a substance resem- 
bling tar in its consistence ; and this change 
not unfrequently leads to the formation of 
biliary calculi, or gall stones. There often 
follows an enlargement of the organ, and a 
change in its structure, and in most cases 
studded with tubercles and ulceration. I 
have met with cases in which the liver has 
become so enlarged from intemperance, as 
to weigh from eight to twelve pounds, in- 
stead of four or five. I have also met 
with several cases, in which the liver had 
become shrivelled and indurated ; its blood- 
vessels diminished, and the organ greatly 
changed in structure, the evident conse- 



142 alcohol ; 

quence of long-continued habits of intem- 
perance." 

Dr. Sewell has dissected so many of 
these besotted vagabonds, who t swarm 
around the sink-holes of drunkenness at 
Washington City, that his word on that 
subject is almost the same as law. 

What does he say about the kidneys? 
He says, "In the inebriate, these organs 
and the other organs immediately associated 
with them are seldom found in a healthy 
state." And why? Because the alcohol 
must go through the kidneys before it can 
get into the urine to pass off; and it inflames 
and burns and diseases them as it goes 
through. 

And what does he say of the heart, — 
the most vital of all the organs of the body ? 

I give you his words; '"From the fact 
that the heart sympathizes strongly with the 
stomach, and is so easily agitated by the 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 143 

passions which alcohol excites, and from 
several cases that I have dissected, I am in- 
clined to think it seldom escapes uninjured 
in the habitual drunkard." And he gives a 
number of cases in proof, two of which I 
will give you : w A large athletic man — an 
old toper — drank a glass of raw whiskey, 
and fell instantly dead." On dissection it 
was found that the heart was spasmodically 
contracted, and the blood all squeezed out 
of it. 

The other case was of a drunken public 
man, who, w while making a public speech, 
with his passions somewhat excited, fell in- 
stantly dead." When opened his heart was 
found cramped and pinched down to the 
smallest compass, and the blood all pinched 
out of it. The blood itself was loaded with 
alcohol, and the heart was making a her- 
culean effort to throw it out, when the man 
perished. 



144 alcohol ; 

And is this all? Not yet/ Not yet. Dr. 
Sewell says the lungs are diseased in two 
ways by ardent spirits. First, by inflaming 
the whole breathing apparatus, in being 
thrown off with the breath, "which often 
terminates in fatal bronchitis and consump- 
tion ; " and • secondly, by the sympathy 
which is called into action between the 
lungs and other organs, — already in a state 
of disease, — and more especially the stom- 
ach and liver." 

Well, is that all? Alas ! not yet. The 
task before me is a dark, and deep, and sad 
one. But it shall be finished. The brain 
itself is diseased by alcohol. The heart, in 
trying to get rid of alcohol, throws too 
much blood (with alcohol mixed in it) 
into the brain ; and this " inflames and 
engorges that organ. If this inflammation 
and engorgement is acute, it is usually 
attended with furious delirium." Do you 



ITS NATURE ANJ> EFFECTS. 145 

hear that ? Furious delirium ! And now 
you know where the delirium tremens comes 
from, — inflammation and engorgement of the 
brain, by too much alcoholic blood. 

Dr. Sewell says so. And Dr. Armstrong; 
an eminent physician of England, who pos- 
sessed ample opportunities to find out, says 
so in these words : " I have found the free 
use of intoxicating liquors a frequent cause 
of chronic inflammation and engorgement of 
the brain, and its membranes. 

Dr. Munroe says, w cases are on record 
of persons who, drinking off at a draft, from 
a quarter of a pint to a quart of ardent 
spirit, have died immediately afterwards. 
The poison having absorbed from the stom- 
ach, mixed with the blood, carried to the 
heart, and propelled to the brain, the ner- 
vous centres became at once paralyzed, and 
the heart ceased to beat." 

Now, as the brain is the organ of the 

10 



146 alcohol; 

mind, it follows that when that organ be- 
comes inflamed, engorged, and diseased, 
that the mind must be disturbed and injured 
also, in many ways. The effect of alcohol 
upon the mind will be the subject of my 
next lecture. 

Well, is this all? Not yet, my friends, 
not yet. Alcohol is a frequent cause of 
paralysis. Sometimes one leg is paralyzed, 
sometimes both, and sometimes one side 
of the body, and sometimes the other. This 
comes, very frequently, from alcoholic in- 
jury to the nerves, as seen in the tottering 
step and the trembling hand. The nerves are 
offshoots of the brain, and alcohol injures 
them in the same way that it does the 
brain ; and it is from this cause that the 
drunkard reels and staggers and sees dou- 
ble. 

Once more to the sickening, heart-revolt- 
ing task. And here let me mention a dis- 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. * 147 

ease called fatty degeneracy. Whenever 
muscle — hard, solid muscle — turns to fat, 
we call it fatty degeneracy. It is a very 
common disease among liquor-drinkers. 
They often look healthy in the face, and 
their limbs seem round and full ; but the 
plumpness is no sign of strength. What 
should be muscle is turning into fat, and of 
course the person has less muscular power 
and strength. The muscle of the arms and 
legs partly turned to fat, and of course be- 
come soft, flabby, and weak. It is no longer 
muscle, but only fat. The blood gets 
loaded with fat, and the walls of the heart 
itself become fat, and it will by and fay 
cease beating, — get sluggish, get tired, get 
softened, get sore, get filled with corrup- 
tion, and stop. 

Dr. Chambers says, " Alcohol produces 
fatty degeneracy more than any other 
agent. It impoverishes the blood ; and there 



148 * alcohol; 

is no surer road to that fatty degeneration 
of muscular fibre, so much to be feared ; 
and it is especially hurtful by bringing on 
disease of the heart. " 

Dr. F. R. Lees, of Leeds, England, in 
speaking of this, says, "That alcohol should 
produce, in drinkers, fatty degeneration of 
the blood, follows as a matter of course." 
There is a little fat in healthy blood, about 
from two to four parts in one thousand 
parts. But the eminent French analytical 
chemist, Lecann, found one hundred and 
seventeen parts in one thousand in drunk- 
ards' blood, — forty times as much as be- 
longed there. 

11 Three-quarters of the chronic diseases 
of England," says Dr. Chambers, w and a 
large proportion in America, are in some 
way combined with fatty degeneracy, and 
chiefly with those who use ardent spirits." 

And herein we have the reason why so 



ITS NATURE AND. EFFECTS. 149 

many liquor-drinkers look so plump and 
round in form. Their look of health is 
fictitious, for they die sooner, and more 
suddenly than Spare men who drink no 
liquor. On this point I shall dwell at an- 
other time. 

Now, let us hear Dr. Sewell's conclusion. 
His words are direct, and to the point ; and 
no truer words have ever been penned : — 

"JBut time would fail me, were I to at- 
tempt an account of half the pathology of 
drunkenness. Dyspepsia, jaundice, emacia- 
tion, corpulence, dropsy, ulcers, rheuma- 
tism, gout, tremors, palpitation, hysteria, 
epilepsy, palsy, lethargy, apoplexy, melan- 
choly, madness, delirium tremens, and 
premature old age, compose but a small 
part of the catalogue of diseases produced 
by alcoholic drinks. Indeed,' there is 
scarcely a morbid affection to which the 
human body is liable, that has not, in one 



150 alcohol; 

way or another, been produced by them«, 
there is not a disease but they have aggra- 
vated, nor a predisposition to disease which 
they have not called into action ; and al- 
though their effects are in some degree 
modified by age and temperament, by habit 
and occupation, by climate and season of 
the year, and even by the intoxicating agent 
itself; yet the general and ultimate conse- 
quences are the same. 

* The inebriate having, by the habitual use 
of alcoholic drinks, exhausted to greater or 
less extent the principle of excitability in 
the solids, the power of reaction, and the 
blood having become incapable of perform- 
ing its offices also, he is alike predisposed 
to every disease, and rendered liable to the 
inroads of every invading foe. So far, 
therefore, from protecting the system 
against disease, intemperance ever consti- 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 151 

tutes one of its strongest predisposing 
causes. 

"Superadded to this, whenever disease 
does lay its grasp upon the drunkard, the 
powers of life being already enfeebled by 
the stimulus of alcohol, he unexpectedly 
sinks in the contest, but too frequently to 
the mortification of his physician, and the 
surprise and grief of his friends. Indeed, 
inebriation so enfeebles the power of life, 
so modifies the character of disease, and so 
changes the operation of medical agents, 
that unless the young physician has studied 
thoroughly the constitution of the drunkard, 
he has but partially learned his profession, 
and is not fit for a practitioner of the present 
age. 

w These are the reasons why the drunkard 
dies so easily, and from such slight causes. 

K A sudden cold, a pleurisy, a fever, a frac- 
tured limb, or a slight wound of the skin, 



152 ALCOHOL ; 

is often more than his shattered powers can 
endure. Even a little excess of exertion, 
an exposure to heat or cold, a hearty repast, 
or slight emotion of the mind, not unfre- 
quently extinguishes the small remains of 
the vital principle. 

w From a careful observation of this sub- 
ject during many years of practice, I am 
persuaded that tens of thousands of tem- 
perate drinkers die annually of diseases 
through which the abstemious would pass 
in safety." 

Thus you have the conclusions of the 
aged, venerable, experienced, and impartial 
Dr. Sewell. 

"Well, but," says one, "Dr. Story, has 
anybody else come to these conclusions 
besides yourself, and Dr. Muiiroe, and Dr. 
Chambers, and Dr. Masing, and Dr. Lalle- 
mand, and Dr. Perrin, and Dr. Duroy, and 
Dr. Magendie, and Dr. McNish, and Dr. 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 153 

Figg, and Dr. Thompson, and Dr. Tod, 
and Dr. Bowman, and Dr. Wood, and Dr. 
Beaumont, and Dr. Sewell, and Dr. Arm- 
strong, and Dr. Lees, and Dr. Lecann, — be- 
sides all these seventeen physicians, are 
there any others that agree with you as 
to the physiological effects of strong 
drink ?" 

I am happy to inform you, sir, that sev- 
eral others have come to the same conclu- 
sion. 

Forty years ago, Dr. George B. Wood, 
in the United States Dispensatory, published 
these remarkable words, — and they are 
in the book, staring the people in the face, 
and have been ever since, in all the revised 
editions. Hear them: "As an article of 
daily use, alcoholic liquors produce the 
most deplorable consequences. Besides 
the moral degradation which they cause, 
their habitual use gives rise, to dyspepsia, 



154 ALCOHOL ; 

hypochondriasis, visceral obstructions, drop- 
sy, paralysis, and not unfrequehtly mania." 

These are his words. And there those 
words have stood, read by every druggist, 
and every doctor in the land (who reads at 
all) for forty years and more. 

Will this nation ever listen to its wisest 
men ? Or will it always follow the advice 
of third-rate upstarts, whose counsels lead 
to disease, disaster, and ruin? 

Dr. John King, in his American Dispen- 
satory, thus speaks, — and I would have you 
mark his words, for they are words of truth 
and candor : K In large quantities and con- 
tinued daily, these (alcoholic) liquors occa- 
sion intoxication, nervous derangement, 
loss of appetite, mental imbecility, dys- 
pepsia, indurated liver, granular disease of 
the kidneys, paralysis, mania, apoplexy, and 
death." 

Hear that. .What a catalogue of diseases ! 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 155 

Do you not believe these Dispensatories? 
You are bound to believe them because you 
have no other standard authorities. They 
are not disputed anywhere, by any responsi- 
ble party. 

The regular physicians all acknowledge 
the United States Dispensatory as authority ; 
ayd the eclectics, and homoeopaths, and 
Thompsonians, acknowledge the Americau 
Dispensatory as authority. And they have 
no other. 

And the hydropaths surely all believe 
that alcohol is the source of a great many 
bodily diseases. Therefore, all the doctors 
of all the schools are bound to believe them 
true. 

Dr. John C. Warren, of Boston, has 
publicly endorsed all that Dr. Sewell has 
said about alcoholic diseases. He has 
done it in a public letter, which is published 
to the world. 



156 alcohol; 

Dr. Valentine Mott, of New York, has 
done the same thing, in the same way. 

Dr. W. E. Horner, of Philadelphia,, has 
done the same. 

Dr. Austin Flint, of Bellevue Hospital 
Medical College, city of New York, who is 
the author of a most able work, on the 
"Principles and Practice of Medicine," says, 
ff In cases of chronic alcoholism, the digest- 
ive powers are weakened, the -appetite is 
impaired, the muscular system is enfeebled, 
the generative functions decay, the blood 
is impoverished, and nutrition is imperfect 
and disordered, as shown by the flabbiness 
of the skin and muscle, and emaciation, or 
the abnormal accumulation of fat. 

* The effects of alcohol enter directly into 
the causation of many affections, such as 
cirrosis of the liver, fatty liver, epilepsy 
(fits), muscular tremor, gastritis, pyrosis, 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 157 

various dyspeptic disorders, and various 
lesions of the kidney. 

"Incidentally, alcohol favors the produc- 
tion of nearly all diseases, by lessening the 
power of resisting their causes, and con- 
tributes to their fatality by impairing the 
ability to tolerate and overcome them." 

That is all sound doctrine, and right to 
the point. Dr. Flint, when he wrote that, 
was not writing a " temperance tract " for a 
"party of fanatics;" but a text-book, for 
the medical profession ; and the profession 
has adopted the book. 

And all the doctors know that these four 
gentlemen, Dr. Warren, Dr. Mott, Dr. 
Horner, and Dr. Flint, are first class au- 
thority, and their united opinion has almost 
the force of the law. 

Dr. Broussais, a French physician, has 
made the same discoveries that Dr. Sewell 



158 alcohol; 

did, by cutting open dead drunkards, and 
finding out for himself. 

When George F. Cook, the drunken the- 
atrical actor, died in New York, Dr. Ho- 
sack, of that city, dissected him, and found 
the liver frightfully diseased by alcohol. 

Dr. Carpenter, the author of Carpenter's 
Physiology, has long since come to the 
same conclusions with Dr. Sewell and Dr. 
Broussais, and proclaimed them to the 
world. 

Dr. Figg, of Edinburgh, Scotland, after 
a great number of examinations, has come 
to the same conclusions. 

Dr. Munroe, of Hull, England, has come 
to the same conclusions, and gone, if possi- 
ble, further still, in condemning the use of 
alcoholic liquors. 

Dr. Baker has examined and experiment- 
ed extensively, and arrived at the^ame con- 
clusions. 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 159 

Dr. Virchow has also been examining the 
blood of drunkards, and finds it loaded 
with fat, and disease, and in a state of pre- 
mature decay, from the use of alcohol. 

Dr. Ogle has made one hundred and for- 
ty-three post mortem examinations of 
drunkards, and found over a hundred of 
their hearts softened by fatty degeneracy ; 
and the other organs in a state of disease, 
the same as described by Dr. Sewell, — all 
from the use of alcohol. 

Dr. Markham, editor of the British Med- 
ical Journal, — which is authority every- 
where, — has had both sides of the question 
published in his Journal lately, holding 
himself neutral. But he has come out with 
his casting vote, giving what he calls "the 
grand practical conclusions." And what 
are they ? 

" 1st. That alcohol is not food ; and that, 



160 ALCOHOL ; 

being simply a stimulant (irritant), its use 
is hurtful to the body of a healthy man. 

M 2. That if the use of it be of service, it 
is so only to a man in an abnormal condi- 
tion ; and that our duty, as men of medicine, 
is to find out what those abnormal condi- 
tions are." 

He seems to doubt whether it ought to be 
used even as a medicine. 

And that from the London Medical Jour- 
nal, in the editorial column, — is not that 
strong authority ? Do you want more ? 

I have oceans of it, and the very best ; 
but shall only refer now to a little more. 

Professor Lehman, the great chemist, 
and author of a book on chemistry, is out 
against alcohol in any form. He says he 
11 does not believe it is capable of contribut- 
ing anything toward maintaining life." 
That knocks it, both as a food and a medi- 
cine. 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 161 

Dr. John Higginbottom, of the Royal 
College of Surgeons, England, after sixty 
years of practice, has published a work, 
from which I quote. n Alcohol has no spe- 
cific effect on any organ of the body, for 
the cure of any disease. On the contrary, 
the taking of it is a principal cause of dis- 
ease. Every disease is aggravated by it, 
and many are generated by the use of it. 
I consider it impious in any medical man 
saying that any constitution requires alco- 
holic stimulants." 

Dr. Brinton, physician in Saint Thomas's 
Hospital, is out against alcohol, in all its 
forms, as positively as any heretofore 
named. 

Dr. Gardner, Professor of Practice in the 
University of Glasgow, Scotland, and Sur- 
geon to the Royal Infirmary, has had six 
hundred cases of typhus fever under his 
care. One-half he treated in the usual 
ll 



162 alcohol; 

way, with tinctures or medicines, with alco- 
hol in them, and lost seventeen out of a 
hundred. The other half he treated with 
the same medicines, leaving the alcohol out, 
and only lost twelve in a hundred : show- 
ing that the difference between seventeen 
and twelve, which is five out of every hun- 
dred of the sick people, have been mur- 
dered with alcoholic medicine. 

Dr. James B. Kirk, Teacher of Surgery, 
and Professor of Chemistry, in the Green- 
ock Institution of Arts and Sciences, 
speaking of alcoholic diseases, compre- 
hended in drunkenness, says they are "by 
far more destructive than any plague which 
ever raged in Christendom, — more malig- 
nant than any other epidemic pestilence 
which ever devastated our suffering race, 
whether in the shape of the burning and 
contagious typhus, the loathsome and mor- 
tal small-pox, the cholera of the East, or 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 163 

the yellow fever of the West ; a disease by 
far more loathsome, infectious, and de- 
structive than all of them put together 
with all their dread array of sufferings and 
of death united in one ghastly assemblage 
of horrific and appalling misery." And 
again, speaking of bilious complaints he 
says that a very large share of them are 
'* only the effect of an irritated and diseased 
liver resulting from the repetition of alco- 
holic stimulus ; and then comes wasting of 
the strength, and emaciation of the body, 
premature old age, uselessness and helpless- 
ness, till dropsy kindly releases the wretch 
from that vulture which ever preys upon 
him, and devours the more greedily as it 
reaches the vitals of its victims." 

And the able and talented Dr. Wm. 
Sweetster, of Vermont, tells us that " we 
gain nothing, then, by the employment of 
ardent spirits ; but how much do we not 



164 ALCOHOL ; 

lose? I could trace, in forbidding relief, 
the shattered nerves, the tottering limbs, 
the gnawing of the vulture at the liver, 
gout with its maddening pain, bloated 
dropsy, the wild ravings of insanity, wast- 
ing consumption, apoplexies and palsies 
oppressing the brain, and rendering the 
limbs powerless." 

The declarations of Dr. Kirk and Dr. 
Sweetster come down to us through thirty 
years of time, and all these years have 
proved their declarations true. 

As to whether it is good for medicine, I 
am going, once more, to quote from the. 
United States Dispensatory : — 

? * In some states of acute disease," — mark 
that. How cautious Dr. Wood is ! — w in 
some states of acute disease, characterized 
by excessive debility, alcohol is a valuable 
remedy. But in chronic diseases, physi- 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 165 

cians should be cautious in prescribing 
liquors containing it." 

He does not recommend it very highly ; 
but tells physicians to be cautious in using 
it. On this point let me quote, also, from 
the American Dispensatory : " There are 
very few cases in which alcoholic stimulants 
are given, and these are never of a chronic 
character." 

Dr. King is positive. "Never of a 
chronic character." 

These views and conclusions are thor- 
oughly and heartily endorsed by Dr. Mas- 
sey, the chemist, Dr. Duroy, the chemist, 
Dr. Lallemand of France, and Dr. Perrin 
of France ; and these are backed by Dr. 
James McCulloch, of Scotland, and Dr. 
Edward Smith, of London, all of whom 
endorse all that we have said concerning 
alcoholic diseases, and all of whom unite in 
saying that "alcohol should be prescribed 



166 alcohol; 

medicinally as carefully as any other poison- 
ous agent." 

Thus we have the additional testimony of 
Dr. King, and Dr. Warren, and Dr. Mott, 
and Dr. Horner, and Dr. Flint, and Dr. 
Broussais, and Dr. Hosack, and Dr. Car- 
penter, and Dr. Baker, and Dr. Virchow, and 
Dr. Ogle, and Dr. Higginbottom, and Dr. 
Kirk, and Dr. Sweetster, and Dr. Mark- 
ham, and Dr. Lehman, and Dr. Brinton, and 
Dr. Gardner, and Dr. McCulloch, and Dr. 
Smith, — twenty first-class physicians, in 
addition to the seventeen heretofore men- 
tioned, — in all thirty-seven strong minds 
from the medical and chemical profession. 
Their united opinion is a tremendous force, 
— an irresistible power, — moving like the 
in-coming tide of the sea, lifting mighty 
navies, as if they were but toys, and ad- 
vancing beyond and above the low-water 
mark of the olden time. 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 167 

From them we learn these tremendous 
lessons : That the effect of alcohol upon 
the human body is that of an irritant and a 
poison. That it burns, and inflames, and 
ulcerates, and injures every organ that it 
touches. .That the stomach, and bowels, 
and blood, and heart, and lungs, and liver, 
and kidneys, and muscle, and brain are all 
injured and diseased. That no part of the 
drunkard's body is free from disease, but 
all parts inflamed and cancerous and cor- 
rupt with sores. That the anger and 
ferocity of the diseases and ulcers is in pro- 
portion to the quantity of alcohol consumed. 
That it does not contain any of the elements 
of food, and therefore is not useful in 
developing bone, nor muscle, nor blood, 
nor brain, nor any part of the human body, 
but is an absolute injury to all parts. That 
it dissolves the juices of the body, and 
hinders and prevents digestion. That even 



168 alcohol; 

as a medicine, it should never be used in 
chronic cases, under any circumstances. 
That it is used as a medicine only in acute 
cases ; and then only when they are char- 
acterized by great prostration. And that 
it should be prescribed with as much 
care and caution as any other poisonous 
agent. 

And besides all these injuries and dis- 
eases, — the catalogue and description of 
which sickens and palls the stoutest heart, — 
besides all these, you all know 4 how the 
drunkard is exposed to the filthy air of base- 
ment saloons, exposed to the rain and the 
snow, and the midnight storms, which 
aggravate his injuries ; how he misses his 
regular food and loses his regular sleep, 
when he is drunk, all of which are contrary 
to the laws of bodily health ; and how his 
sleep is disturbed, — when he does sleep, — - 
with frightful dreams and horrid visions, 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 169 

and wakes without being rested or refreshed, 
which is very injurious to his physical 
health, and hastens the day of his death, 
and adds pains and anguish to the sorrows 
of his dying hour. 

Do you want more testimony still ? You 
shall have it, for I want j r ou to be convinced. 
This time the proof shall come from the 
medical profession, combined in force, and 
a strong array. 

The Medical Society of the State of New 
York — the physicians of a w T hole great 
State, — have spoken, by passing, unani- 
mously, this resolution : " Eesolved, that, 
in view of the ravages made upon the mor- 
als, health, and property of the people of 
this State, by the use of alcoholic drinks, 
it is the opinion of this medical society, 
that the moral, sanitary, and pecuniary 
condition of the State, would be pro- 



170 alcohol; 

moted by the passage of a Prohibitory 
Law." 

There it is, in plain letters, and positive 
words. And shall the doctors of a whole 
State pronounce their opinion in vain ? 

I wish you to notice where the great 
and ' impartial brain of the medical pro- 
fession to be found, and whether it is drift- 
ing. 

I present one more set of resolutions. 
Let the lovers of temperance and good 
order hear and take courage. The world 
is moving, and moving in the right direc- 
tion. 

The following opinion has been signed 
by Dr. Carpenter, author of Carpenter's 
Physiology, and five thousand more, first- 
class physicians : — 

* We, the undersigned, are of opinion, 

"1. That a very large proportion of 
human misery, including poverty, disease 



ITS NATUKE AND EFFECTS. 171 

and crime, is induced by the use of alcoholic 
or fermented liquors as beverages. 

" 2. That the most perfect health is 
compatible with total abstinence from all 
such intoxicating beverages, whether in the 
form of ardent spirits, or as wine, beer, ale, 
porter, cider, etc. 

"3. That persons accustomed to such 
drinks may, with perfect safety, discontinue 
them entirely, either at once, or gradually 
after a short time. 

" 4. That total and universal abstinence 
from alcoholic beverages of all sorts would 
add greatly to the health, the prosperity, 
the morality, and the happiness of the human 
race." 

Do you want stronger language or more 
emphatic ? Who has a better right to know 
than the doctors have? Attached to that 
opinion, are the names of five thousand 
doctors, chemists, and druggists. And is 



172 alcohol; 

the united voice of five thousand profes- 
sional men to be disregarded? How long? 
Oh, how long? 

Great bodies move slowly, and the men 
who are engaged in learniug, practising, 
and teaching the laws of life and health, 
have been slow in expressing their opinion. 

But now, since they have pronounced 
their opinion, it should ring in tones of 
thunder all over the land. 

WE HAVE JOINED TOUR NOBLE ARMY. 

We have searched the realms of nature — far and wide our 

search has spread; 
We have analyzed the products that compose our daily bread; 
And examined all the organs of the living and the dead, 
But we fail to find an organ in the human body laid, 
Or an appetite in nature, in its native form arrayed, 
That requires, for its promotion, any alcoholic aid ! 

We have studied all diseases, as the faithful only can, 

That have blighted human pleasure, since the dawn of time 

began ; 
In all their many windings, through the fragile frame of man, 
But we fail to find an evil, or a pain, in all the field, 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 173 

Or disease, mild or malignant, whether open or concealed, 
That requires the poison alcohol, to hasten it to yield. 

We have found, in all our studies, that the poison is a blight, 
That enfeebles every organ, burns its vigor, rots its might, 
And that darkens ail the future, with the heavy pail of night; 
That it certainly exposes (thus the book of nature saith) 
Its victims to diseases, that will steal away their breath, 
And drag them down, in sorrow, to the iron gates of death! 

You have waited for our counsels; waited patiently and long; 
For the voice of careful science to denounce the giant wrong; 
And it has our condemnation, earnest, ponderous, and strong! 
We have joined your noble army, with the strength that in us 

lies, 
To subdue the fell destroyer, that the laws of health defies, 
And to urge the war, with vigor, till the giant evil dies! 



V. 



Alcohol — What Effect has it upon the im- 
mortal Mind? — Does it ever cause Indolence, 
Ignorance, or Depravity ? — Is it ever the Cause 
of Mania, Insanity, Madness, Lunacy, Delirium, 
Wickedness, or Crime? — Does it increase the 
Number of Dolts, Idiots, and Fools ? — In what 
Way ? — and why ? 



Y. 

We are now about to enter a field that 
has never yet been fully explored ; about to 
investigate the brain, with its wonderful 
aud beautiful mechanism, and ascertain the 
effect of alcohol upon the immortal soul. 

Let us proceed thoughtfully and cau- 
tiously. 

It is now admitted by everybody that the 
brain is the organ of the mind. It is not 
the mind itself, but only the organ through 
which the mind acts, and without which 
there would be no mind, without which 
no man could think or feel. Just as the 
muscle is the organ of strength. The mus- 
cle is not strength, but only the organ 
through which strength is manifested, and 
without which there would be no strength. 

177 



178 ALCOHOL ; 

The lung is not heat, but only the organ 
by means of which heat is generated for 
the body, and without which the body 
could have no warmth. 

The stomach is not food, but only the 
kitchen where the food is prepared for the 
nourishment of the whole system, and with- 
out which food would be of no service. 

The blood is not the life of man, but only 
the organ that takes the food, when pre- 
pared by the stomach, carries supplies to 
every part of the system, and furnishes to 
each department the means by which life is 
sustained, and without which there could 
be no life. 

In like manner the brain is the organ of 
the mind, or the medium through which 
the mind is made manifest. . And hence a 
brief description of the brain, will throw 
immense light upon the subject before us. 
That the brain is the organ of the mind has 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 179 

been abundantly proved by Dr. Gall, and 
Dr. Spurzheim, and Dr. Combe, Professor 
Fowler, and # others; and there are at this 
time, few if any, who doubt the fact. Dr. 
Gray, in his great work on anatomy, says : 
" The size of the brain appears to bear a 
general relation to the intellectual capacity 
of the individual. An idiot's brain weighs 
only a pound and a quarter, or a pound and 
a half; while the brain of a highly intellec- 
tual man, at maturity, weighs three and a 
half or four pounds, or more. 

" The brains of animals are very small, 
when compared with the brains of man. 

" The brain of a large whale that is seven- 
ty-five feet long, weighs only about five 
pounds. The brain of the largest elephant 
weighs only about eight pounds. And 
these are the only two animals in God's 
creation that have a brain in equal weight 
to that of a man." And I may add to the 



ISO alcohol; 

statements of Dr. Gray, that the brain of 
the whale and the elephant, as well as all 
other animals, is of a much coarser mate- 
rial, and more loosely put together than the 
fine-spun, and closely woven brain of man. 

The brain of some people is finer, and 
made of better material than that of other 
people, just as oak is better material than 
buckeye, and mahogany is finer than oak. 
But the human brain is almost always su- 
perior to the brain of an animal. 

Dr. Romberg, of Germany, says, " The 
brain is the organ of the soul." 

Most animals' brains weigh less than the 
human idiot, besides being of a very infe- 
rior material. 

The human brain, when viewed as a mass, 
is of a grayish white, or chalk color, and 
it is very similar to the marrow that you 
have seen in the marrow bones of animals. 
It is made up of very minute white threads 



ITS NATUKE AND EFFECTS. 181 

or strands called nerves, which are very 
small and very delicate in their nature, — 
many of them finer then the finest hair, — 
as fine as the spider's web and finer, many 
of them being so fine that they cannot be 
seen without the aid of a magnify ing-glass. 
They run from the head to every part of the 
body, or rather from every part of the body 
to the head. 

One little nerve starts from the end of 
your fingers, and runs the whole length of 
your arm, and passing through the neck 
reaches the head. Another, starting from 
the tip of your toe, runs the whole length 
of the leg, passes into the hollow of the 
backbone, reaches all the way up the spinal 
column, and finally winds its way through 
the neck and into the head. Another starts 
from the stomach, and, winding its way 
through the chest and neck, enters the head 
also. Every part of the body is supplied 



182 alcohol; 

with little fine nerves, and they all take the 
shortest and easiest route to the head. 

We may catch the idea, perhaps, by com- 
paring the whole system of nerves to a 
system of telegraphs, coming into a great 
city. One little wire starts from Portland, 
Maine, and is mounted on a myriad of poles 
passing over ' hills and across villages, 
through forests and over prairies, till it 
reaches Chicago. Another starts from New 
Orleans, and winds along the Mississippi 
Valley, half the length of a continent, till 
it reaches Chicago. And another little bit 
of a wire starts from San Francisco, stretch- 
es across the desert, climbs the mountains, 
reaches beyond the plains, till it comes to 
Chicago also. Along these little wires 
comes the news from every quarter of the 
country. So with these little fine nerves. 
They' start from every corner of the body, 
and all come to the head — as the great een- 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 183 

tral office. They are the organs of sensa- 
tion and feeling, and they bring the news 
from ever} 7 part of the body to the head. 
Touch the end of your finger to a hot stove, 
and instantly the news is sent along the 
nerve to the head, that the finder is being 
burned, and the head sends back a despatch 
to remove the finger. Set your bare foot 
upon a thorn, aud a despatch is sent to the 
head and back in the same way. Take a 
bite of Indian turnip in youi* mouth, and 
a despatch is instantly sent to the head, 
along the nerve leading from the mouth to 
the head, and peremptory, orders are sent 
promptly back to spit it out. If you could 
take a knife and reach into your arm at 
the elbow, and cut off all the nerves that 
pass that point, you could then hold your 
hand in the fire, and let it broil and fry, 
and it would give you no pain; nor could 
you open nor shut your fingers, nor take 



184 alcohol; 

your hand out of the fire, without using 
some other part of your body. Reach in 
at the knee, and cut off all the nerves that 
pass that point, and then you could put 
your foot into boiling water, and cook it 
until the flesh should fall off the bones, and 
you would not feel it ; nor could you take 
it out of the water, nor move a toe, unless 
you take your hand to lift it out. Cut off 
all the nerves that start from your mouth, 
and you could fill your mouth with nitric 
acid, and hold it there, and it would not 
pain you ; nor could you spit it out, unless 
you should lean over your head and just 
let it run out itself. So you see that the 
nerves are the organs of feeling and mo- 
tion, and without them we could neither 
feel nor move. 

As these little nerves start from every 
conceivable part of the body, they must be 
very numerous. You can scarcely touch 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 185 

yourself anywhere, with a needle, without 
touching upon a nerve. You may count 
the hairs of your head, perhaps, but you 
never can count the nerves, so great is their 
number. When you look at a piece of 
fresh meat, you do not see many of the 
nerves, because they are too small to be 
seen. 

As these little nerves approach toward 
the head, they run together side by side, 
forming larger strands or threads, so that 
you can more easily see them with the 
naked eye. 

The nerves of the thumb and little fin- 
ger, and all the fingers, get together part 
way up the arm, so as to form a chord as large 
as a small needle. And others, coming from 
the stomach and bowels, join with those 
near the neck, forming a chord larger than 
the largest knitting-needle. So the nerves 
coming from the feet run together and form 



186 * alcohol; 

chords or ropes, and these again unite with 
others, forming larger ropes, until they all 
approach the neck, where they are found in 
twenty-four large ropes or cables. And 
these again unite, two running together into 
one, so as to form twelve very large cables,, 
called the Twelve Pairs of Nerves. 

And here let us notice a wonderful and 
beautiful peculiarity of all the nerves. 
They are nearly or quite twice as long as 
the body they traverse. For instance, you 
are six feet high, the nerves that run from 
your feet will be twice six, which is twelve 
feet long. If from the end of your finger 
to your head is four feet, the nerve will be 
about twice four, which is eight feet long, 
and so on. 

If there were a hole in the top of your 
head, so that the nerves could be carried 
upward, some of them would reach six feet 
above your head. And then suppose some 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 187 

person could commence at the top of them, 
and coil them up into nice little coils, and 
wrap them in pretty little bundles, and reel 
some of them in the sweetest little skeins, 
like skeins of silk, only finer, and wind 
•some of them into little spiral coils, like 
the thread on a spool, only so much nicer 
and finer, and turn some of them into nice, 
tiny loops ; and then take all these little 
coils and bundles, and skeins and loops, and 
pass them down gently, through the sup- 
posed hole in your head, and pack them 
away side by side, and on the top of each 
other, until the skull should be packed solid 
and full of little coils and bundles, and 
skeins and loops. Wouldn't it be nice to 
see them all packed away so sweetly? 
Well, if you ever get a chance to see the 
doctor dissect a human brain, that is just 
what you will see. 

You will see that the human brain is only 



188 alcohol; 

the upper half of all the nerves, wrapped 
into the most exquisite little packages, and 
bunches, and laid away in the skull, in the 
most bewitching little layers. Some places 
you will see little thin partitions skilfully 
placed in between the little layers and pack- 
ages, — thin as the thinnest paper, and thin- 
ner, and in other places they will be lying 
snugly together, and just gently touching 
each other, without anything between them. 
Wonderful and beautiful is the structure 
of the human brain ! 

But you ought to have a magnifying glass 
when you look at the human brain, because 
to the naked eye, it looks about like the 
marrow in a marrow-bone. And it is the 
same thing as marrow. Because the mar- 
row in the bone is only a straw, or a num- 
ber of straws of nerves, running toward the 
head. That part of the nerve which is 
coiled up in the skull, we call brain ; and 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 189 

that part of the brain which is outside of 
the head, reaching all over the body like 
little telegraphs, we call nerves. So that 
the nerves and the brain are essentially the 
same thing. 

You remember what Mrs. Partington told 
Ike, when he was lying down on the 
lounge, with his feet on the table. She 
told him that he ought not to lie that way, 
because his brains might happen to all run 
down into his head. 

I think I have seen a few persons who, 
to all appearances, had by far the larger 
half of their brains located in their bodies. 

The phrenologists made a great mistake 
when they undertook to make the science 
of the mind independent of physiology; 
because the mind is only the manifestation 
of intelligence and goodness, or the oppo- 
site of these, made through the brain, one- 
half which is spread through all parts of the 



190 alcohol; 

body. And the physiologists but very im- 
perfectly understand the whole system of 
man, until they have mastered the mysteri- 
ous and wonderful workings of the mind or 
soul, through and beyond the nerves and 
brain. 

The science of the body and the science 
of the mind are together but one science, 
and should be called the science of human 
life. 

The brain, like all other parts of the 
body, is supplied by the blood. It was for 
ages supposed that there were no blood- 
vessels in the body of the brain. But it is 
now Avell understood by all physicians that 
the brain is abundantly supplied with 
arteries and veins. They are so fine that 
few of them are visible. But when we 
take the magnifying glass and examine 
carefully, we find myriads of arteries and 
veins. They are finer than the finest hairs, 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 191 

— finer than the web of the spider, — finer 
than the nerves themselves, and yet hollow 
and filled with blood. These little arteries 
entwine their little . branches all around and 
all through the coils and skeins of nerves, 
in a thousand directions ; so that the brain 
is fed by the blood directly from the 
heart. And as the heart gets the food 
directly from the stomach, it follows that 
the brain is supplied from the food that we 
eat and the fluids that we drink passing 
from the stomach into the heart, and pro- 
pelled by that organ directly to the brain 
itself! It follows, therefore, that if the 
stomach and heart become diseased, and 
the blood diseased and loaded with impuri- 
ties, that the brain is supplied — if supplied 
at all — with impure materials and diseased 
food. 

The brain asks for bread, and for meat, 
and the blood brings it sour bread, and 



192 alcohol ; 

decayed meat, that have just come through 
a diseased and ulcerated stomach, a softened 
and sore heart, along a line of arteries, the 
inside lining of which is inflamed and mat- 
tering. Now, can a brain be healthy thus 
supplied with filthy food? How can a mind 
be sound that has to act through a starved 
and diseased brain? 

TVe have shown, in a former lecture, how 
alcohol diseases the stomach, and diseases 
the heart, and how it thickens the blood 
with corruption and disease ; therefore it 
must follow that the brain is supplied with 
thick and depraved blood. The little 
arteries of the brain are so small that the 
thick and diseased blood of the drunkard will 
not pass into them, without being forced in, 
by a too great exertion of the heart. This 
engorges the brain, and stretches the little 
arteries too full, distends them beyond their 
natural size, and strains them, and this 



ITS NATURE AXD EFFECTS. 193 

causes pressure against the nearest nerves, 
and this pressure injures or destroys the 
ability to feel and move and think. When 
the man feels and moves and thinks imper- 
fectly we say he is drunk. When he can- 
not think, nor feel, nor move at all, we say 
he is dead drunk. 

Sometimes the alcohol burns and scorches 
these little blood-vessels through which it 
passes, until they become charred and 
shrivelled and crisped and harder and 
smaller than they should be ; so that the 
thick, grumous, and diseased blood of the 
inebriate cannot pass through them at all, 
and even healthy blood will not enter them. 
Some thin fluid like alcohol, or chloroform, 
or ether may pass them perhaps, but blood 
cannot. 

Sometimes the alcohol, in these dried-up 
and parched-up arteries and veins, oozes 
out through the cracks and crevices in 

13 



194 ALCOHOL ; 

them, into the substance of the brain itself, 
causing it to turn to fat or grease, and look 
like little drops of oil or lard, instead of 
strands of nerve or brain. This is called 
fatty degeneracy of the brain, and is quite 
common among liquor-drinkers. 

Sometimes these arteries burst, and the 
blood mixes right in among the brain, form- 
ing clots, which make sores in the body of 
the brain itself; and of course destroys a 
few of the neighboring nerves that are 
around the sores. And these clots of 
blood, from the bursted arteries, press so 
hard upon the surrounding brain, as to 
cause paralysis, palsy, and death, as we 
have heretofore shown, and injure these 
beautiful little arteries of the brain . itself, 
making them sore in all their myriad little 
branches. 

If the person stops drinking, the blood 
that has thus run out into the brain will 



ITS NATUKE AND EFFECTS. 195 

generally be absorbed, the bursted vessel 
heal up, and the brain get well ; but more 
frequently the blood thus run out will dry 
into a hard, solid clot, causing a permanent 
injury, or else the brain close to it will 
turn to pus or matter, and make a filthy, 
mattery sore right in the brain itself, that 
is difficult to heal. 

Do you suppose that a substance that is 
so poisonous as to burn a stomach until it 
is fiery-red and purple and sore, — a sub- 
stance that is not modified by digestion, but 
remains the same, a poison, as long as it 
remains in the system, — a substance that, 
being thinner than blood, will readily pass 
into the little arteries of the brain, propelled 
there by the heart while it is making her- 
culean efforts to get rid of the poison itself, 
— do you suppose such a poison does not 
inflame and ulcerate the little tender arteries 
of the brain ? Such a substance could not 



196 alcohol; 

fail, and does not fail, to injure the brain 
seriously. Dissection shows the little ar- 
teries of the brain to be strained, irritated, 
inflamed, engorged, ulcerated, and often 
bursted by the poisonous effects of alcohol ! 
The arch-destroyer leaves a fiery path on 
his journey through the brain ! And the 
mind that has to act through such a brain 
must be injured in proportion ! 

When alcohol is taken into the stomach, 
its presence is telegraphed along the nerves 
to the brain. This is rather a pleasant sen- 
sation — and the only pleasant sensation 
worth mentioning — caused by the alcohol, 
which is so volatile and penetrating in its 
nature that a part of it penetrates through 
the coatings of the stomach, along the path- 
way of the nerves, and follows those nerves 
to the brain. But by far the largest portion 
of the alcohol takes the natural, open chan- 
nels, out of the stomach, into the heart, 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 197 

through the arteries, directly to every part 
of the body and brain. This, of course, 
stimulates at first, or, to use more appropri- 
ate language, irritates and burns the brain 
into greater activity ! 

And now comes the question, What part 
of the brain does it stimulate or irritate the 
most? In answering this question let me 
compare the arteries of the head to the limbs 
and branches of a beautiful shade-tree. Just 
a little way above the ground the limbs and 
branches are quite large, but as they go up- 
ward they divide and subdivide, getting 
smaller and smaller and more numerous, un- 
til, toward the top of the tree, they get to 
be very small and slender twigs. 

So with the arteries of the head. In the 
lower part of the head they are quite large, 
— so large that they can easily be seen with 
the naked eye, — : but they divide and sub- 
divide, getting smaller and smaller, and 



198 alcohol; 

finer and finer, and more numerous, as they 
approach toward the top and front of the 
head, where they are extremely minute. It 
follows, therefore, that there will be the 
most alcohol where the arterie^ are the 
largest, and consequently all the lower part 
of the brain will be stimulated or irritated 
the most ; and, as the brain is the organ of 
the mind or soul, the lower organs of the 
mind or soul will be stimulated to the great- 
est activity, and the higher organs of the 
intellect, mind, or soul, will be stimulated 
the least. Is not that perfectly rational ? 

Well, now what are some of the lower 
organs of the mind that become stimulated 
most? The desire to drink is one of the 
lower organs, and when it has been stimu- 
lated, the man wants to drink again, — wants 
to drink when by nature he would not be 
dry, — wants to drink what a normal nature 
does not require, and what does not quench 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 199 

thirst. The desire to drink becomes a ma- 
.nia, and he knows not when to stop ! 

The desire to attack is one of the lower 
organs, and when irritated by poison the 
man wants to attack, perhaps, his nearest 
and dearest friends ; and, if the organ is al- 
ready large in his organization, he wants to 
break, burn, destroy, and kill ; will want 
to quarrel and fight with his neighbors ; 
will want to break, burn, and destroy his 
neighbor's property ; will want to beat and 
abuse the wife of his bosom, and punish and 
abuse the children of his loins ! Wife-beat- 
ing and child-beating have become so com- 
mon among drinking people that they have 
ceased to become matters of surprise, but 
are expected and looked for as matters of 
course. Dr. Munroe mentions a case, where 
"a man, who was peaceable when sober, 
kicked down a loving and beseeching wife 
with as much vengeance as he would kick a 



200 ALCOHOL ; 

reptile out of his way, and then thrashed 
his poor little helpless children, and tore the 
clothes from their little, innocent bodies to 
pawn for more drink ! " 

Is not this mania? What is mania? 
Webster, in his big dictionary, says mania 
is " Violent derangement of the mind, mad- 
ness, insanity, excessive or unreasonable 
desire, insane passion." I infer, therefore, 
that if a person has an inclination to do an 
unnatural and wrong act, and that inclina- 
tion is beyond the control of his will, such 
an inclination or desire thus irresistible and 
uncontrollable is mania. 

A mechanic in New York city told me 
that when he was out of sight and reach of 
liquor, he did not very much desire it ; but 
when he saw it, he wanted it greatly ; that 
after he had taken the least taste of it, he 
could not control his desire for more ; and 
that when he had partaken freely, and was 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 201 

at home, he felt an almost superhuman in- 
clination to kill his wife ! With tears in his 
eyes he said that he loved his wife as dearly 
as any man could, but several times while in- 
toxicated he had caught himself with weap- 
ons in his hands preparing to take her life, 
and had. to hasten from her presence to pre- 
vent himself from doing so ! He said he 
did not want to be guilty of such an awful 
crime, and tried to banish the thought, but 
feared that some day he might commit the 
crime before he was aware of it ! This case 
represents a double mania : mania to drink, 
followed by a mania to kill ! And when- 
ever the forms of mania multiply it becomes 
insanity or madness. Webster says that 
insanity is "Unsoundness of mind, derange- 
ment of intellect, synonymous with lunacy, 
madness,' derangement, alienation, aberra- 
tion, mania, delirium, frenzy, monomania-, 
dementia." Well, that definition covers 



202 



ALCOHOL ; 



pretty extensive ground. And he defines 
madness to be " Disorder of intellect ; infat- 
uation, with excitement of perception, wild- 
ness of passion, fury, rage." 

When John Girdwood was on the scaf- 
fold, and about to be hung, he said to the 
people : f? Fellow-men, before Godwin whose 
presence I shall stand in a few minutes, I 
would as soon have taken my own life, as 
that of my dear boy, for I loved my wife 
and children as dearly as any man could 
do ; but I was maddened by the drink, and 
knew not what I was doing ! " 

When Dr. Pitchard, of Glasgow, was 
about to be executed for poisoning his wife 
and mother-in-law, he confessed that " being 
somewhat excited by whiskey, I yielded to 
the temptation to give them sufficient chlo- 
roform to cause death. I can' assign no 
motive for the conduct which actuated me, 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 203 

beyond a species of terrible madness and 
the use of ardent spirits ! " 

After Wilkes Booth, had made up his 
mind to kill President Lincoln, he could 
not muster the courage to execute his 
plan, until after he went again into a res- 
taurant and called for M brandy ! brandy ! " 
Only after the organ of attack was irritated 
by alcohol, dared he to murder one of the 
noblest, best, and greatest men of modern 
times. 

Some, when they have poisoned their 
brain with alcohol, are haunted with a 
strong desire to commit suicide, and will 
watch for weeks and months for a chance 
to make way with themselves. The melan- 
choly mania for suicide often accompanies 
the mania to kill. 

Dr. Munroe tells us that he once knew a 
laboring man, who, " when he had taken a 
few glasses of ale, would chuckle with 



204 ALCOHOL ; 

delight at the thought of firing a certain 
gentleman's stacks. When his brain was 
free from the poison, a more quiet or better 
disposed man could not be. He afterwards 
fired the stacks of his employer, and served 
fifteen years in prison for doing so. Many 
a person, otherwise well disposed, has fired 
a house, a barn, or a boat, or a bridge, 
through this same mania to burn, which 
often follows the mania to drink. 

You have, perhaps, all witnessed exhibi- 
tions of the drunkard's mania to break. In 
the saloon he will break tumblers, de- 
canters, and pitchers, or his fellow-topers' 
skull, and then come home and smash the 
lamps and looking-glasses, kick over the 
table and dishes, throw the chairs through 
the window, and kick down the clock, and 
play smash generally. 

Pat came home one night drunk, and 
pushed over the cupboard and broke all the 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 205 

dishes, and spilt all the cold victuals, and his 
wife Bridget, who had also partaken of a 
"wee drop," took down the looking-glass 
and broke it over his head , saying, w Bloody- 
wars, and it's mysilf that'll be afther breakin' 
furniture wid ye, time about ! " 

The organ of acquisition, or desire to get, 
possess, and accumulate, is also one of the 
lower organs of the brain, traversed by 
some of the larger arteries of the brain. 
And you all know how common it is for 
drinkers to be found with' a mania to steal. 

A wealthy merchant of Chicago tells me 
that he has a lady customer, who is in 
affluent circumstances, and abundantly able 
to pay for all her needs, but who frequently 
comes to his store when under the influence 
of liquor, to purchase goods, and rarely 
fails to conceal some article of value about 
her person before she leaves. A few days 
after, when the influence of the poison has 



206 ALCOHOL ; 

ceased to operate, she sends the goods back. 
She has confessed to the merchant, that, 
after drinking ardent spirit, she cannot re- 
sist the inclination that comes in her way. 
Sending back the goods proves that she is 
honest when sober. Taking them proves 
that she is dishonest when muddled. The 
lower organ of acquisition is stimulated to 
excessive activity, while conscience or moral 
honesty and the will are both located at 
the top of the head, where the arteries are 
very small, and not stimulated in proportion. 
The police reports are loaded with cases 
of larceny and theft committed under the 
influeuce of liquor. Cases of this kind are 
so numerous, that it is hardly necessary to 
mention any of them. Out of the mania to' 
steal and the mania to cheat comes the 
mania to gamble. Many who would scorn 
to stake money on a game of chance when 
sober, will be eager to gamble for money on 



ITS XATUEE ^T> EFFECTS. 207 

me of cards or billiards just as soon as 
they have inflamed the organ of acquisition 
and policy, which makes them want to get 
and acquire by strategy and cunning. 

The irritation of the organs of acquisition 
and attack, coupled with the mania to steal 
and gamble, very easily develop the mania 
to rob. How often does the defeated gam- 
bler, with his brain inflamed with whiskey, 
rise from the gambling-table, with a mind 
bent on robbing the successful one before 
he reaches home ! Deliberate, premeditated 
robberies are comparatively scarce ; but 
robberies under the influence of liquor are 
by far too numerous. 

Close in this connection comes the mania 
to lie. The side organ of sublimity, which 
makes a man love great things and want to 
do great things, and the front organ of lan- 
guage, which makes people want to talk, 
are both stimulated considerably, while 



208 alcohol ; 

honesty, at the top of the head, and judg- 
ment and reason, at the top and front of the 
head, are less stimulated. Hence the enor- 
mous, outrageous lies that tipsy men will 
tell. They will lie, and then chuckle and 
gloat over the enormity of their falsehoods ; 
take a special delight in telling the most 
shallow and silly but monstrous lies. 

Again : the organ of amativeness or sexual 
love is one of the lower organs, through 
which pass some of the larger arteries ; and 
when these arteries are filled with poisoned 
and corrupted blood, the person will be 
possessed with a mania for lust. The 
brothel is close to the groggery. Young 
men go out of the house of tippling to the 
hou^e of prostitution. Husbands who 
drink the poison draught, are apt to prove 
faithless to their marriage vows. Wives 
who drink to intoxication want only oppor- 
tunity to commit adultery. No married 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 209 

person can long put faith in a drunken 
companion. Some persons quaff the poison 
liquid on purpose to produce this mania for 
lust ; but they generally live long enough to 
regret the act with shame and remorse. 
The way of the transgressor is hard, and 
persons who drink to intoxication, for such 
an object, soon find there are bitter dregs 
in the cup of folly. 

On account of the lower organs being so 
unduly excited, and the higher organs of 
reason, judgment, conscience, and will, not 
being equally excited so as to control them, 
the man ceases to be himself, Js directed 
and impelled by his lower organs and pas- 
sions, and becomes obedient only to the 
powers and forces of evil ! Is not this de- 
pravity? What is depravity? Webster 
says that depravity is " the state of being 
depraved or corrupted ; a vitiated state of 
mind or character ; want of virtue, absence 

14 



210 alcohol; 

of religious feeling or principle, extreme 
wickedness." Such is the definition of de- 
pravity ; and where can we find depravity 
more complete than among inebriates. 

Time will not allow me to notice all the 
forms of mania that are developed by in- 
toxication, for they are too numerous. Ma- 
nia has many forms. Alcohol does not 
affect all people's minds, nor control their 
actions alike. And why? Because the 
shape and size of people's brains are not 
alike. As a general rule the organs of the 
brain that are large, healthy, and active, 
have larger arteries running through them, 
and are better supplied with blood from the 
heart, than the smaller organs. It follows, 
therefore, that the organs already large and 
active will generally be irritated for a time 
into greater activity. One man has large 
self-esteem, and when he gets drunk, the 
self-esteem becomes more active, and forth- 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 211 

with he thinks he is a nobleman or a king. 
He undertakes to prove it by acting grand 
and lordly, as he thinks, and is reckless 
with his money, to prove that he is rich. 

The efforts of a drunken man to be grand 
and kingly are so ridiculous that they call 
to mind the efforts made by three journey- 
men tailors in London, who got together 
and issued a proclamation, commencing, 
K We the people of England, in mass con- 
vention assembled ! ' ? 

One has the organ of ambition large, and 
is fond of applause. When he gets drunk 
he undertakes eloquence. One of this kind 
addressed a hitching-post, a telegraph-pole, 
and a wooden Indian, in front of a cigar 
store, as follows : " Gentlemen, fellow %(hic) 
citizens, this is an unexpected (hie) ova- 
tion ! It is not my own merit, but the 
cause I (hie) represent, which gives me 



212 ALCOHOL ; 

this enthusiastic (hie) reception. I bid 
you an affectionate fare (hie) well." 

Another prides himself on his muscular 
strength, and he essays to show it. Dr. 
Munroe saw a young man who had exhaust- 
ed 'himself in performing what he called 
"great deeds of daring and valor." He had 
gathered two door-knockers, three bell- 
pulls, and a stairway railing, all of which he 
had pulled off by main strength, and col- 
lected during the night. 

An intoxicated man, the other day in 
Chicago, imagined himself a locomotive ; 
thought his head was cow-catcher, and his 
arms were driving-wheel pitmans. While 
going along the street, saw two policemen 
ahead. Whistled to them. Hallooed to 
them to get off the track. As they failed 
to get off, he run into them with his cow- 
catcher, and knocked them down with his 
pitmans. Next day the judge fined him 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 213 

five dollars for running his locomotive on 
the pavement. 

A crowd of guzzlers get together to guz- 
zle. One feels musical, and undertakes to 
sing. To him the music is magnifi- 
cent; and to his tipsy companions, delight- 
ful. But to a sober, sensible man, the mu- 
sic is flat, insipid, discordant, harsh, and 
stale. 

Others among them say things they sup- 
posed to be witty, and they all laugh heart- 
ily at each other's brilliancy. But if they 
could hear the same stuff read, after the 
poison in their brains had ceased to operate, 
they would not call it wit nor brilliancy. 
Too soft, too coarse, too flat, too vulgar for 
either. It would hardly pass for tenth-rate 
bosh. 

Alcohol dulls the edge, and takes away 
the keenness and clearness of the mind. 
The eye is not so quick to perceive, nor 



214 ALCOHOL ; 

the ear so keen to hear, nor the reason so 
accurate or quick to comprehend, nor the 
judgment so quick to decide, nor the will 
so ready to command, nor the memory so 
tenacious to retain. 

Health without stimulation affords the 
greatest amount of mental and physical 
power. Dr. Brinton says, "Mental acute- 
ness, accuracy of perception, and delicacy 
of the senses are all so far opposed to the 
action of alcohol, that the greatest efforts of 
each are incompatible with the drinking of 
any moderate quantity of fermented liq- 
uid." 

And if the mind becomes inaccurate, un- 
balanced, sluggish, and beclouded, is it not 
depraved? Depravity, remember, is "The 
state of being depraved, corrupted, or viti- 
ated, in mind or character." 

And we remark, many of these forms of 
mania and depravity, which are at first but 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 215 

temporary, lasting only during the drunken 
debauch, finally become permanent, and 
grow constantly worse, because the nerves 
and brain are so engorged, and clotted, and 
ulcerated, and sore, that they will not heal, 
but only grow worse and more incurable. 
And, of course, as they grow worse the 
mild forms of mania become the wildest 
insanity and incurable madness. 

As we shall not have time to finish this 
argument to-night, let us review, and col- 
lect together the principal points thus far 
developed. 

We have found that the brain is a contin- 
uation and concentration of the nerves, that 
reach all over and through the body ; 

That the brain is the organ of the mind 
or soul ; 

That the brain is fed and supplied by the 
blood, sent from the heart, through the 
arteries ; 



126 ALCOHOL ; 

an active man to take it out half as fast as 
we put it in. 

Dr. Beaumont used to look into the 
young man's stomach every day ; and con- 
tinued to do so for more than fourteen 
years. 

And the doctor hired the young man to 
go with him to Washington City, and to stay 
with him there, on purpose to try experi- 
ments with food and drink in his stomach. 
The inside of a healthy stomach has a light- 
pink color, as all doctors well know. 

{See Sewell's Plates, No. I.) 

And as Alexis St. Martin was a healthy, 
stout boy, his stomach was pink-colored also, 
at first. But by and by he got so he liked 
liquor ; and, as he had grown to be a man, 
the doctor had to let him do as he pleased. 
After . he had been drinking pretty hard for 
a few days, Dr. Beaumont looked into his 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 127 

stomach, and found it — no longer pink, 
but fiery red, and very much congested or 
inflamed. When St. Martin would quit 
drinking for a few days, the doctor would 
look in, and find the stomach pink-colored, 
healthy, and all right again. 

Dr. Beaumont wrote a book all about 
it long ago, before the Temperance Reform 
began. Out of that book I make this quo- 
tation : — ' 

"The free use of ardent spirits, wine, 
beer, or any of the intoxicating liquors, 
when continued for some days, has invaria- 
bly produced those morbid change- in St. 
Martin's stomach." 

Ah! invariably done it. And the doctor 
made these kind of examinations for four- 
teen years. Well, that is something; but 
I have something more. Dr. Thomas Sew- 
ell, who was then a young doctor, used to 
go and look into St. Martin's stomach some- 



218 alcohol ; 

That the arteries in the lower part of the 

brain are larger than they are in the upper 

■ 

part, and, therefore, there is more alcohol 
and corrupt blood acting upon the lower 
organs, to stimulate or inflame them ; 

That the organs of thirst, attack, acqui- 
sition, amativeness, and other animal or- 
gaua are located in the lower part of the 
brain ; 

That the location of these organs has 
been abundantly proved by writers on 
phrenology ; 

That, when they are injured by alcohol, 
the person will, be apt to be overcome by a 
mania to drink, mania to injure, mania to 
kill, mania for suicide, mania to steal, ma- 
nia to lie, mania to gamble, mania to rob, 
mania for lust, or some other form of ma- 
nia; 

That when several of these forms of 
mania are present in the same mind, it is 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 219 

properly called insanity or madness, and is 
always coupled with depravity ; 

That the organs which are already large 
and supported by large arteries are apt 
to be stimulated the most by the use of 
alcoholic liquors ; 

That the keenness and clearness and ac- 
curacy of the whole mind or soul are dulled, 
and blunted and beclouded and depraved 
and weakened by them ; 

And that these various forms ef mania, 
insanity, madness, foolishness, and deprav- 
ity, at first only temporary, frequently be- 
come wild, raging, raving, and incurable. 

SHALL MANIA PREVAIL? 

Shall man, well endowed with a rational mind, 

And wise, beyond all of the creatures of earth, 
Judging, perceiving, and loving, refined — 

The image of Him who created the earth, 
With conscience, and reason, and hopefulness filled, 

And these all immortal — composing the soul, 
With honor enwrapped, and with cheerfulness thrilled, 

And grand as the heavens that over him roll; 



220 ALCOHOL. 

Shall he be destroyed, and broken, and crushed, 

And darkly o'erwhelined with oblivion's cloud, — 
His holy emotions all silenced and hushed, 

And covered, and wrapped in so mournful a shroud, 
By the demon of drink, who betrays with a kiss, 

And who kills, while pretending to nourish and cheer ; 
Who robs his poor victims of heaven and bliss, 

And takes from them all that is noble and dear ? 

Shall mania prevail when the mind should be well ; 

And madness succeed over reason dethroned; 
Insanity wild, and delirum fell, 

Take possession of him whom the angels have owned ? 
Shall hate take the place of love in the heart, 

And wickedness dwell where the lovely has been ? 
Shall endearments be sundered, — torn rudely apart ? 

And man given over to passion and sin ? 

Then banish the fiend from the face of the earth; 

Or kill him at once, for the good of the race ? 
Drive him hence, from your kindred, your children, and 
hearth, 

All covered with shame, and all dark with disgrace ! 
Drive him hence ! Drive him hence ! and as soon as you cun ; 

Make him go from the mind where reason once beamed; 
Let the poor, despised drunkard, once more be a man; 

Let the soul of the victim be nobly redeemed. 



VI 



Alcohol — What Effect has it upon the Im- 
mortal Mind ? — Does it ever cause Indolence, 
Ignorance, or Depravity ? — Is it ever the Cause 
of Mania, Insanity, Madness, Lunacy, Delirium, 
Wickedness, or Crime ? — Does it increase the 
Number of Dolts, Idiots, and Fools ? — In what 
Way? — And Why? 



VI. 

Webster, in his unabridged Dictionary, 
says that lunacy is "a species of insanity or 
madness ; properly the kind of insanity 
which is broken by intervals of reason, any 
unsoundness of mind, derangement, crazi- 
ness, mania." 

And, as this lecture is a continuation of 
the preceding one, we shall further under- 
take to show that the use of alcoholic or in- 
toxicating liquors is the great and all-pre- 
vailing cause of K unsoundness of mind, de- 
rangement, craziness, mania." 

Let me tell you, ladies and gentlemen, 
that there comes a time in the history of 
the drunkard, when he no longer imagines 
himself king, nor lord, nor noble ; when he 
forgets to be witty, and has no desire to 

223 



224 ALCOHOL ; 

sing ; when he has no desire to lie, nor 
steal, and no longing for lust; when even 
his desire to break, and burn, and kill is 
hushed into silence. The organ of caution 
becomes inflamed, and he becomes over- 
cautious and fearful, and trembles with 
terror. The nerves of the eye become in- 
flamed, and he sees strange and awful 
sights, wild animals, fierce beasts, slimy 
and venomous serpents, huge, terrible, and 
hideous. The nerves of the ear become 
inflamed, and he hears strange and awful 
noises, hears the crackling of flames, the 
growling of monsters, the screeching of 
fierce birds, the loud laughter of fiends. 
The nerves of the nose become inflamed, 
and he smells terrible stenches and smokes. 
The nerves of feeling become inflamed, and 
he feels the sharp points of spears, the edges 
of knives, the claws of dragons, the hot 

coals and blazes of burning ruins. The 
\ 



ITS KATURE AND EFFECTS. 225 

nerves of taste become irritated and in- 
flamed, and he tastes bitter herbs, acrid 
liquors, and fiery drugs. The nerves of 
imagination become irritated and inflamed, 
and he imagines sights and sounds more ter- 
rible than ever existed in society, and he 
quakes and gasps with terror. The nerves of 
memory become inflamed at last, and he re- 
calls the image of a praying mother, a loving 
and beseeching wife, and the smiles of his 
innocent children. Anguish and hopeless 
remorse take possession of his soul ; and 
while he is thus raving and calling for pro- 
tection against these myriad evils, the vi- 
tal organs of the body, scorched and burned 
with alcohol, cease to perform their accus- 
tomed duties, and the victim dies. His 
soul thus bewildered and tortured, passes 
to the land of spirits, where everlasting 
silence reigns. 

Now, what shall we call this last condi- 

15 



226 alcohol ; 

tion of the drunkard's mind? Delirium? 
What is delirium? Webster says it is "a 
state of the mind, in which the ideas of a 
person are wild, irregular, and unconnected ; 
mental aberration, a raving or wandering 
of the mind." Thus we have traced the 
evil effects of intoxicating liquors, from 
their entrance into the stomach, through a 
myriad avenues, to the scorching and burn- 
ing of the brain, and the development of 
mental delirium. 

But perhaps you want other authorities, 
besides those already mentioned, to estab- 
ish the conclusions arrived at in this lecture 
and the former one. 

They are at hand and you shall have them. 

From the report of the United States 
census of 1860, we learn that the "brain 
is the organ of thought, the machinery 
through which all the operations of the 
mind are evolved." And we learn from 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 227 

the same report, that "the use of in- 
toxicating liquors is a very great source 
of mental derangement." The census is 
taken by order of the National Govern- 
ment, by able, impartial, and responsible 
men, and their report is sworn to ; and 
therefore a statement in that report should 
have great weight in determining a doubt- 
ful point. 

Dr. Austin Flint, Professor of Physiology 
in Bellevue Hospital Medical College, in 
the city of New York, has recently pub- 
lished a very able work on the Principles 
and Practice of Medicines, from which I 
quote these words : w The deleterious in- 
fluence of alcohol on the mental is not 
less marked than on the physical powers. 
The inebriate exemplifies a variety of 
the forms of mental derangement, called 
dipsomania, from which recovery is ex- 
tremely rare. The perceptions are blunt- 



228 alcohol ; 

ed, the intellectual and moral faculties 
progressively deteriorate, until at length 
the confirmed inebriate, miserably cachetic 
in body and imbruted in mind, has but 
one object in life, namely, to gratify the 
morbid cravings of alcohol." Is not that 
sound on the temperance question? Dr. 
Flint's book was not written for a w temper- 
ance tract," but a standard work for the 
medical profession. As such the profession 
has adopted it. 

And now let me refer you to another 
standard medical author, Dr. M. H. Rom- 
berg, of Germany, who was for twenty- 
eight years a physician in one of the largest 
union hospitals of Berlin, Prussia, and 
afterwards for a number of years Director 
of Clinics in the University of Berlin, and 
who, during all that time has seen, perhaps, 
fifty thousand cases of mental disease, and 
w T ho has written some two thousand pages 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 229 

on the Diseases of the Nerves and Brain, for 
the medical profession. From his great 
book we quote : — 

" The diseased condition of the blood and 
its vessels exerts an undoubted influence on 
the mind. The affections of the mind, such 
as vertigo, dizziness, fear, terror, etc., are 
caused in a great measure by the continued 
use of spirituous liquors and other nar- 
cotics, taken into the blood, that inflame 
the blood-vessels of the nerves and brain." 
Is that language strong enough for you? 
Let me quote again from Dr. Romberg, 
and I wish you to take particular, notice 
of this, because I shall use it hereafter 
when we come to consider the adulteration 
of liquors. It is this : " The most frequent 
exciting causes of neuralgia, vertigo, and 
many other nervous diseases, are intoxi- 
cation by alcoholic liquors, and the use 
of other narcotics and the organic vegetable 



230 ALCOHOL ; 

alkalies, such as tobacco, belladonna, digi- 
talis, hyoscyamus, stramonium, etc. Alco- 
hol and narcotics act upon the brain and 
spinal chord. The state of the blood is 
depraved by these poisons, and it (thus 
depraved) reacts upon the brain. It affects 
the nerves of the eye so as to make it see 
sights that do not exist; and upon the 
nerves of sound, so as to make them hear 
sounds that do not exist, such as boiling, 
screeching, hammering, cutting, etc. After 
a time the mind becomes clouded, and 
sopor, and paralysis, and death intervene." 
Dr. Romberg gives a number of cases that 
he dissected. One of them was a case 
of cholera, from intoxication, when, "on 
making the post-mortem examination, he 
found the larger veins on the surface of the 
brain, as well as the blood-vessels in the sub- 
stance of the brain, engorged with blood." 
Dr. Romberg was not writing a " temperance 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 231 

tract," but a scientific work for the whole 
profession. Dr. Munroe says, "The blood, 
becoming so impaired by the use of alcoholic 
beverages, is no longer able to sustain the 
brain in a healthy condition." And he 
mentions cases of epilepsy and apoplexy, 
when he made post-mortem examinations, 
and, on cutting through the congested brain, 
he discovered a multitude of " minute blood 
spots (where the arteries had burst), in- 
dicating a great amount of pressure in the 
blood-vessels." 

Dr. Cheyne describes a case of a drunken 
sea-captain, who was struck with paralysis, 
and died in a few hours. On examination, 
he found the brain w divided in the middle 
by quite a puddle of blood." 

Dr. John H. Bennett, Professor of Clini- 
cal Medicine in the University of Edinburgh, 
who has written a thousand pages on dis- 
eases of the mind, says that "alcohol is a 



232 alcohol ; 

poison which especially affects the nervous 
system, and more particularly the brain." 

Dr. Percy made a number of dissections, 
where he found the blood-vessels burst, 
and blood and alcohol mingled with the 
substance of the brain. Dr. Huss did the 
same, with the same results. These gentle- 
men, and many others, found cases where 
part of the brain had turned to fat, from 
the presence of alcohol ; and a number of 
cases where part of the brain had decayed, 
or turned to pus, or matter, from the same 
cause. 

Let me quote also from Dr. John Hig- 
ginbottom, of the Royal College of Sur- 
geons, whose writings are good authority 
with doctors everywhere. "Alcohol is par- 
ticularly destructive to the brain and ner- 
vous system, and, consequently, to the 
mental and physical powers of the whole 
body. Drunkenness and insanity appear 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 233 

so near akin, that drunkenness has been 
called voluntary insanity, and we often find 
that such voluntary insanity terminates in 
involuntary and incurable insanity.'' 

Dr. E. L. Cleveland says, "At first it 
sparkles and cheers, and excites mirth and 
song. But at last it poisons and maddens, 
and produces sorrow and curses, and feuds, 
and fighting, and murder, and emasculates 
the mind of every element of strength, and 
degrades the conversation to the merest 
stammering of idiotic gibberish, until the 
man becomes a dilapidated and vulgar sot, 
and at last sinks into the slough of despond- 
ency and mental horror, until death kindly 
relieves him of his misery." 

Dr. Morel, of France, was for several 
years connected with Salpetriere Hospital, 
where there are more than one thousand 
insane people, and afterwards was for sev- 
eral 4 years Superintendent of Mareville 



234 alcohol ; 

Lunatic Asylum, where there are more 
than one thousand more of these poor, de- 
mented human beings. After seventeen 
years of experience he has written a book, 
and from his book we quote his testimony 
as follows : " There is always a hopeless 
number of paralytic and other insane per- 
sons in our (French) hospitals, whose dis- 
ease is due to no other cause than the abuse 
of alcoholic liquors. In one thousand, upon 
whom I have made especial observation, 
not less than two hundred owed their men- 
tal disorder to no other cause." What do 
you think of that? That is in France, 
where it is supposed they drink "wine 
only." Two hundred out of a thousand. 
Which is equal to twenty per cent. For 
not less than twenty per cent, of the insanity 
of France, he could find no other cause. 
Dr. Morel was not writing a work on tem- 
perance, and therefore has not told us. that 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 235 

thirty per cent, of the other known causes, 
such as " excessive grief," " disappointed 
affection," etc., were created by the drink- 
ing of alcoholic liquors. 

Another learned Frenchman, by the 
name of Behics, in making a report on 
the physical causes of insanity in France, 
says that " of eight thousand and eight hun- 
dred male lunatics, and seven thousand and 
one hundred female lunatics, thirty-four per 
cent, of the men, and six per cent, of the 
women were made insane by intemperance. 
He was not writing a temperance report, 
and therefore did not include those who 
became insane from "disappointed ambi- 
tion," "unrequited love," "loss of prop- 
erty and position," "excessive grief," etc., 
brought on by the drunkenness of fathers, 
husbands, and friends, which would swell 
the thirty-four per cent, to more than fifty 
per cent., for both male and female. I 



236 ALCOHOL ; 

know at least one case, where a father be- 
came insane from excessive grief, because 
his son became a drunkard. And at the 
asylum he was registered as insane from ex- 
cessive grief. A wife went insane because 
her husband made a drunken beast of him- 
self, squandered her property, and abused 
her person; and her name was registered 
as insane from "unhappy domestic rela- 
tions." A pious sister became insane be- 
cause her drunken brother — for whom she 
most earnestly prayed, and with whom she 
most zealously plead — would not repent of 
his sins, nor join the church, nor listen to 
her pleadings, but spurned her from his 
presence with harsh and bitter oaths. At 
the asylum her name was registered as in- 
sane from " excessive religious zeal." Thus 
the records cover the real causes with gilded 
phrases, rather than offend the dignity of 
besotted relatives. 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 237 

Motet says that "more than one-fourth 
of the insane (in France) whose malady is 
due to physical causes, suffer the penalty 
of alcoholic excesses. Among eight thou- 
sand seven hundred and ninety-seven cases 
of the insane from physical causes, three 
thousand and forty-four were drunkards 
(ivrognes)." These figures represent over 
thirty per cent., or nearly one-third. 

But Motet, like the rest, was not consid- 
ering the various "domestic troubles" and 
other exciting causes, that so frequently re- 
sult from drunkenness in the family, and 
which, if considered, would swell the num- 
ber to over fifty per cent, of all the lunatics 
in the land. 

I have not time to-night to quote from 
Dr. Eeuben D. Mussey, of Vermont, but 
will say this much, that his writings fully 
and pointedly confirm quite a number of the 
leading points in this and some of my pre- 



238 alcohol ; 

ceding lectures. His writings are powerful 
and convincing temperance arguments. I 
may quote at another time. 

Dr. Hiram Cox, a distinguished chemist 
of Cincinnati, Ohio, acting as a physician 
to the Probate Court of that city, examined 
upwards of four hundred cases of insanity, 
previous to sending them to the State 
Asylum; and he says that "two-thirds of 
their number became insane from drinking 
the poisonous liquors sold at the doggeries 
and taverns of our city and county. 

"Many of them were boys nineteen or 



twenty years of age, some of whom were 
laboring under a hereditary taint, — and 
perhaps in many of them the mental de- 
rangement would never have been devel- 
oped, had they not drank these poisonous 
decoctions." 

Let us listen to the learned Dr. Sewell : 
* The inebriate first loses his vivacity and 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 239 

natural acuteness of perception. His judg- 
ment becomes clouded and impaired in its 
strength, the memory also enfeebled and 
sometimes quite obliterated. The mind 
is wandering and vacant, and incapable 
of intense or steady application to any one 
subject. 

"Inflammation and endorsement of the 
brain are frequent consequences of intem- 
perance, and may take place during a de- 
bauch, — or may arise some time after, 
during the stage of debility, from the loss 
of a healthy balance of action between the 
different parts of the system. This inflam- 
mation is sometimes acute, is marked by 
furious delirium, and terminates fatally in 
the course of a few days, and sometimes a 
few hours. At other times it assumes a 
chronic form, continues much longer, and 
then frequently results in an effusion of 
serum, or an extravasation of blood, and 



240 ALCOHOL ; 

then the patient dies in a state of insensi- 
bility, with all the symptoms of compressed 
brain." 

Let me quote from a distinguished and 
learned philanthropist, who spoke on this 
subject forty years ago: "The influence on 
the mind is similar to that which is ex- 
erted on the body. Strong drink gener- 
ates, perhaps, as many mental as physical 
diseases. The momentary effect of this 
stimulus is exhilaration. But this state of 
excitement cannot long continue, and it 
must be followed by a tremendous intel- 
lectual reaction. It is a blazing fire which 
consumes itself and soon burns out. The 
discriminating powers are not aided even 
by the present excitement of spirituous 
liquor. The imagination may mount on a 
more lofty pinion \ or fancy display a more 
gaudy plume ; but in these very cases the 
understanding is generally embarrassed, 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 241 

and the judgment grossly perverted. I 
would not trust a man — I care not what 
his intellect may be — who is excited by 
strong drink, in any business which de- 
mands cool investigation. The mind is 
biased, impatient, and unstrung. The 
powers of discrimination are blunted ; the 
more buoyant faculties soon flag ; and the 
imagination, which was accustomed to soar, 
soon crawls upon the earth. The immor- 
tal mind of the drunkard is not less blighted 
by this withering curse than his dying 
body. His memory, once retentive and 
ready, has lost its wonted power. His 
understanding, which could once grasp and 
wield and elucidate almost any subject, 
becomes debilitated and childish. In his 
cups the drunkard is generally a temporary 
madman. 

" But idiocy and insanity are not always 
temporary in the case of the drunkard. 
16 



242 alcohol ; 

nent in the future man. Idiots may be 
found almost everywhere, who have brought 
this calamity upon themselves by the im- 
moderate use of ardent spirits. From men 
of intellect and men of business, and per- 
haps men of pre-eminent attainments, they 
have debased themselves to a common level 
with the swine. In some cases reason seems 
to be blotted out, and the miserable victim 
of intemperance lives and dies a literal fool. 
In other cases still more numerous, there is 
a manifest approximation to idiocy, where 
this deplorable consequence does not actually 
follow. Who has not witnessed the wane 
of intellect around him ? Who has not seen 
the shrewd accountant become dull; the 
profound philosopher rendered obtuse ; the 
arch politician bewildered ; the eager flight 
of the learned advocate flag ; and that pre- 
cocity of genius which, in the dawn of life, 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 243 

attracted the steady gaze, and promised a 
giant manhood, dwindle into mental insig- 
nificance and death? The world may, per- 
haps, stand and wonder at the change, and 
speculate upon the latent cause. But lift 
the curtain, and the mystery is solved. 
There stands the bottle, and the death of 
intellect in it. Trace the effects of this 
habit upon the talents, and learning, and 
prospects of a young man of early promise ; 
fix your eye upon one who is gifted with as 
fine a mind as was ever moulded by the hand 
of Heaven ; and let him become addicted to 
his cups ; and let him continue to suck and 
suck at the bottle, and he will ultimately 
become a besotted dolt, a mere idiot. 

* As to madness, every one knows that it 
is a common effect of excessive drinking. 
It is stated on good authority that one-third 
of all the cases of insanity, in the United 
States, may be traced to intemperance as 



244 alcohol ; 

the direct cause. Oh, what misery does 
this poisonous cup inflict ! What transfor- 
mation of those creatures who were made 
to stand erect, and who were originally 
formed in the image of God ! To be a 
sensible man, by and by a fool, and pres- 
ently a beast ! " 

I wish to refer you now to the report of 
the Board of State Charities of the Com- 
monwealth of Massachusetts for the year 
1866, carefully prepared by seven gentle- 
men, — three of them physicians — as drawn 
up by Dr. Nathan Allen, of Lowell. I 
quote the following : — 

w It is well known that alcohol stimulates 
the lower propensities and weakens the 
higher faculties. Everybody knows that a 
certain dose acts upon certain faculties so as 
to make a man jolly, while a greater, acts 
upon other faculties, so as to make him 
quarrelsome and angry. 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 245 

• 

"Alcohol, taken into the stomach or ab- 
sorbed in the skin, must mingle, undigested, 
with the blood ; and alcoholized blood stim- 
ulates the blood in a peculiar manner. A 
large dose stimulates those organs or func- 
tions which manifest themselves in what we 
call propensities or animal passions, and re- 
presses those organs or functions which 
manifest themselves in the higher or human 
sentiments, which result in (refinement, 
morality, and) will. If the blood, thus 
highly alcoholized, goes to the brain, its 
functions become subverted ; the man does 
not know and does not care what he says or 
does. If this process is often repeated, the 
lower propensities are strengthened by ex- 
ercise, until, by and by, they act of their 
own accord, while the restraining (moral) 
powers or will, weakened by disease, are 
practically nullified. The man is no longer 
under the control of his voluntary power, 



246 ALCOHOL } 

but is under the dominion of his lower 
organs, and they (the lower organs) are 
almost as much beyond his control, as the 
beating of his heart. The habitual stimulus 
of the brain by alcoholized blood — in ever 
so small doses — must produce the same 
kind of result, ofily in a lesser degree. 
Blood that is alcoholized, must have this 
peculiar effect upon the brain, namely, to 
excite and intensify the lower propensities, 
and to lessen (and weaken) the voluntary 
and restraining powers. It excites the 
animal nature to powerful and ungovern- 
able activity, and utterly paralyzes (judg- 
ment) reason, conscience, and will." 

So says Dr. Allen. So say we all. 

According to the United States census, 
we have in the republic about twenty-four 
thousand insane people. And we have 
already shown that one-half of this number 
become so from intoxicating drink. Twelve 






ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 247 

thousand victims to insanity ! Twelve thou- 
sand raving maniacs, from this evil alone ! 
And this continually. One-third of them 
die every year, and new ones come to fill 
their places. Three thousand a year cast 
into the awful vortex of death from madness, 
from this one vice alone ! Three thousand 
annually, go — raving and distracted — 
into the jaws of death ! 

The remaining two-thirds are cured, after 
three years of treatment, at great expense ; 
and are returned to their homes, shattered 
and broken-down relics of their former 
selves. Their bodies wrecked ; their minds 
in ruins ; ghastly shadows of departed 
worth. 

Once more. And now we come to the 
idiots. An idiot is one who lacks ordinary 
sense ; one who is deficient in mental ability, 
— wanting in some of the common faculties 
of the mind ; one who lacks capacity or abil- 



248 alcohol ; 

ity to acquire ordinary intelligence ; a sim- 
pleton ; a natural fool. 

Webster says, a fool is * one who is desti- 
tute of reason, or the common powers of un- 
derstanding ; a person deficient in intellect ; 
an idiot ; a simpleton ; a dunce ; a dolt." 
The United States census reports about 
twenty thousand idiots or fools ; but this is 
perhaps, an under estimate, as many parents 
hate to tell the census officers that their 
children are fools ; for which reason many 
are reported as sound in mind who are 
really idiotic. The number of idiots, in 
most countries, and all ages, has been equal 
to or greater than the number of insane. 
Therefore we may safely say that there are 
twenty-four thousand fools in the United 
States. And then leave out a host of peo- 
ple who exhibit strong marks of idiocy. 
The fool -killers have been lenient ! The 
fools are not all dead ! Many a man thinks 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 249 

he is wonderfully smart, who is in reality, 
a fool. I have seen several myself, within 
a mouth. It is the easiest thing in the 
w T orld to be a fool, and not know it ! 

As already shown in this lecture, drink- 
ing is one great cause of idiocy. 

Many a man of fine talents has drank 
himself into a fool. Many a bright boy and 
man of talent has become a fool while 
becoming a sot. 

And right here I wish to call your atten- 
tion to a law of human life ; namely, the 
law that "like begets like." Children are 
like their parents. When we plant acorns, 
we raise oaks, not hickories. When wheat 
is sown, it produces wheat, not corn. Weeds 
produce weeds. Black children come from 
black parents ; diseased children from dis- 
eased parents. 

M Traits of character, dispositions, aspira- 
tions, talents, propensities, passions, de- 



250 ALCOHOL ; 

praved conditions and diseases, may be in- 
herited, as well as form, looks, and com- 
plexion." 

The law that children inherit the traits, 
weaknesses, and diseases of their parents, 
is so universally acknowledged by medical 
men, and so well understood by most intelli- 
gent people, that I will not undertake to 
prove it in this lecture ; but refer those 
who doubt the truth of it to almost any 
medical book they choose to pick up, and 
especially to the article on * idiocy " in the 
Eighth Census. In that report will be 
found abundant proof, and reference to 
many able medical writers. It is as old as 
the days of Aristotle ; and as true as the 
multiplication table. Fowler has thoroughly 
explained it in his works on Love and 
Parentage, Matrimony, and Hereditary 
Descent. 

Dr. Carpenter, in his book, quotes from 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 251 

Dr. Brown, of the Crichton Lunatic Asylum, 
who says : " The drunkard not only injures 
and enfeebles his own nervous system, but 
entails mental disease upon his family. His 
children are nervous, weak, wayward, and 
eccentric, and become insane under the pres- 
sure of excitement from some unforeseen 
exigency, or the ordinary calls of duty." 

And, referring to his own private practice, 
he says, "At present I have two patients 
who appear to inherit a tendency to an un- 
healthy action of the brain, from mothers 
addicted to drinking." 

Dr. S. G. Howe, in his Report to the 
Legislature of Massachusetts, makes the 
following statement : "The habits of the par- 
ents of three hundred of the idiots were 
learned ; and one hundred and forty -five — 
nearly one-half — are reported as known to 
be habitual drunkards." 

This, remember, is in addition to the large 



252 alcohol ; 

number who started in life with sound minds, 
but who became idiots through the use of 
drink. Adding the two together, we be- 
come satisfied that more than half of all the 
idiots in the land become so from their own 
and their parents' and grandparents' drunk- 
enness ! 

" The sins of the parents are visited upon 
the children, to the third and fourth genera- 
tion." "The parents eat sour grapes, and 
the children's teeth are set on edge." Woe 
unto the children of drunkards ! 

Let me quote again from Dr. Allen's Re- 
port : K Every thoughtful man admits the 
existence of a strong tendency to the hered- 
itary descent, of all conditions and peculiari- 
ties of body (and mind) , and also that many 
of these conditions are purely the result of 
habit. Any morbid condition of the body 
(or mind), frequently repeated, becomes 
established by habit. Once established, it 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 253 

affects the man in various ways, and makes 
him more liable to certain diseases, such as 
gout, scrofula, insanity, and the like. This 
liability or tendency he transmits to his 
children, just as surely as he transmits like- 
ness in form or feature. Now the use of 
alcohol certainly does induce a morbid con- 
dition of the body (and mind). A given 
dose excites the animal nature to powerful 
and ungovernable activity, and utterly par- 
alyzes reason, conscience, and the will. But 
a small dose does the same thing, only in a 
lesser degree. It is morally certain, there- 
fore, that the frequent or habitual overthrow 
of the conscience and will, or the habitual 
weakening of them, soon establishes a mor- 
bid condition, with morbid appetites and 
tendencies, and that these appetites and 
tendencies are surely transmitted to off- 
spring." 

No logic will be able to overthrow that 



254 ALCOHOL ; 

position. Nothing truer was ever penned 
by man. 

I know of a family of seven children, one 
of which is a fool. He is now more than 
twenty years of age, and does not know 
enough to put on or take off his own clothes. 
They clothe him in a loose frock, like a wo- 
man's dress, and he goes about astride of a 
stick, with a switch in his hand, like a little 
boy of four years old, playing horse. He 
knows how to swear; but that is all he 
knows of language. A few words will ex- 
plain it all. Both parents were beastly 
drunk at the time of conception ! They 
quit drinking; arid the other six children 
have inherited about average intellect. 

I know of another family, where the first 
child has average common sense ; the sec- 
ond is very much demented ; and the third 
is a slobbering, drooling fool. 

The explanation is easy. After marriage 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 255 

the parents began drinking, and in six years 
had become perfect sots. 

They have become so diseased and de- 
praved that they can bring forth no more. 
God Almighty has set a limit to such shame- 
less debauchery . They have cursed the earth 
with these ; but there they have to stop. 

Young man, how would you like to be 
the father of a fool ? Or a whole family of 
fools? If I ask you to show me your chil- 
dren, you point to a litter of idiots, and say, 
"There, that is the best I could do!" If 
you do not wish to be the father of fools, 
then let liquor alone. And if you do not 
let it alone, the chances are, that you will 
become a fool yourself; and your posterity 
after you. Shame, shame upon you ! 

Young lady, how would you like to be 
the mother of a family of fools ? Then keep 
clear of a drunken husband ! If a young 
man comes to you who drinks, and thus 



256 alcohol ; 

depraves himself, spurn him from your 
presence as you would a loathsome leper. 
He is unclean, — unfit to be the companion 
of a true woman. If you marry a man, and 
he afterwards makes a sot of himself, di- 
vorce him, — go from his loathsome pres- 
ence as you would from a filthy beast. Do 
not permit yourself to be the mother of 
fools. 

Let me quote from Dr. H. E. Storer and 
Dr. Albert Day, the former of Berkshire 
Medical College, and the latter of the Ine- 
briate Asylum, Binghampton, New York. 
They unite in saying that "Epilepsy, idiocy, 
and insanity, whether noticed at birth, 
or whether developed later in life, — with 
or without any exciting cause, — are among 
the direful effects, so often seen by medi- 
cal men, in the persons of the children of 
those who are addicted to habits of intox- 
ication." 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 257 

Hear that ! What an awful warning ! 
They speak of "idiocy, insanity," and other 
filthy diseases, as being "deliberately en- 
tailed, by besotted parents, upon their in- 
nocent descendants." 

Drunken parents thus make a filthy mock- 
ery of human life, and when they die leave 
only poor, demented, slobbering, dirty, half- 
witted representatives behind them. Shame, 
shame ! 

These physicians further say, "It is not 
merely the man or woman inflamed by alco- 
hol — at or near the time of sexual inter- 
course — that implants the fatal disease in 
the child at the very moment of concep- 
tion ; not this and these only ; but they are 
equally guilty, perhaps more so, who, — 
with their blood diseased from long satura- 
tion with this poison, their nervous system 
shattered, and the very foundations of their 

17 



258 alcohol ; 

being tainted, — proceed deliberately to en- 
gender offspring." 

Like begets like ; their children will be 
like themselves. Woe unto the children of 
drunkards ! 

There are exceptions, of course ; but this is 
the usual rule. No intelligent man will deny 
it. Thus we account for over one-half of all 
the idiots. Twelve thousand idiots curse 
the land, from drunken parents ! Is liquor 
a curse ? Or is it not ? Add to this num- 
ber twice twelve thousand more, who are 
almost idiots, — just a shade above the fool, 
and many of them otherwise diseased, — 
and you have a sickening, but truthful, pic- 
ture of the awful ravages of the liquor 
scourge. 

Webster defines wickedness to be "evil 
in principle or practice ; contrary to the 
moral law ; evil disposition, or practice ; 
immorality ; crime ; sin ; sinfulness." 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 259 

And this brings us to consider the last 
and most heart-revolting topic of all, crime ; 
crime against the property and persons of 
others, which is largely caused by the de- 
mon, drink. In my Lecture No. 5 I have 
shown the reasons why it causes crime. In 
this one let me specify a little more fully. 
And what is crime? Webster says it is 
"any violation of law, whether divine or 
human ; an omission of a duty which is 
commanded, or the commission of an act 
which is forbidden by law ; violation of 
law ; gross offence." 

Among the milder forms of the drunkard's 
crimes, perhaps, is the neglecting of his 
business, the wasting of his time, the squan- 
dering of his money, and annoying decent 
society by his filthy, noisy presence. 

A drunkard comes into your shop, or 
store, or house, and although he may not 
be violent, he bores you out of your time, 



260 alcohol ; 

or frightens your wife or children, or dirties 
up your furniture and room, or disgusts you 
with his indecent, filthy, lying gibberish, 
and you long to have him gone. 

Then come theft, and cruelty to animals, 
and the losing, breaking, and burning of 
property. Then follow assault and battery, 
and riot, resulting in personal injury, or 
rape, or robbery, or murder, or all com- 
bined ; for the drunken brutes scarcely 
know the crimes they commit. Does the 
drinking of liquor cause people to commit 
any of these crimes, or does it not? The 
man who says it does not, knows that he is 
himself a liar. 

The chaplain of the Massachusetts State 
Prison inquired into the causes of crimes, 
and testifies that nineteen out of every 
twenty, confined within those prison walls, 
were there for crimes committed through 
the agency of liquor ; and nearly all of them 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 261 

while actually under the immediate influ- 
ence of liquor. 

Out of twenty-two murders, twenty were 
committed while under the maddening influ- 
ence of intoxicating spirits. 

Lieutenant Governor Trask had before 
him six hundred applications for pardon for 
criminals confined in prison, all but two of 
whom committed their crimes while under 
the influence of liquor. 

And this only confirms the opinion, long 
since expressed, of eminent men, who have 
spent their lives in the court-room. 

Listen to some of the judges in the court 
of Great Britain. I quote from Mr. Del- 
avan : — 

Judge Coleridge : " There is scarcely a 
crime comes before me that is not, directly 
or indirectly, caused by strong drink." 

Judge Gurnet: "Every crime has its 
origin, more or less, in drunkenness." 



262 alcohol; 

Judge Patterson : w If it were not for 
this drinking, you (the jury) and I would 
have nothing to do." 

Judge Anderson : " Drunkenness is the 
most fertile source of crime ; and if it could 
be removed, the assizes of the country 
would be rendered mere nullities." 

Judge Wightman : K I find in every cal- 
endar that comes before me, one unfailing 
source, directly or indirectly, of most of 
the crimes that are committed, — intemper- 
ance." 

Lord Acton, Supreme Judge of Eome, 
declared that "nearly all the crimes of 
Rome originate in the use of wine." 

Many lawyers, judges, and statesmen, in 
our own country, have expressed similar 
opinions. And these opinions are shared 
by Eev. Messrs. Miner, Beecher, Chapin, 
and other clergymen. 

In our own city of Chicago, during the 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 263 

year 1867, there were twenty-three thou- 
sand arrests. And more than twenty thou- 
sand of them w^ere brought about by the 
agency of intoxication. 

Intoxication, therefore, is the infernal 
source, from which flows the black and 
filthy stream of crime. Drunkenness is 
the filthy nest in which depravity, shame, 
and wickedness are hatched, and from 
which the hellish brood of crime crawls 
forth. Alcohol is the father of four-fifths 
of all the crimes, whether small or great. 

There were about six hundred cases of 
suicide in the United States during the year 
1867. During the same time there were 
about eight hundred murders ; fifteen hun- 
dred rapes; five thousand robberies; five 
thousand cases of arson ; one hundred thou- 
sand cases of larceny and theft ; besides a 
countless host of small, petty crimes and 
misdemeanors. 



264 alcohol; 

Four-fifths of all these crimes are charge- 
able to the use of liquors. To this must be 
added four-fifths of all the cost of detection 
and punishment. And even this does not 
complete the bill of indictment against in- 
toxication. 

Four-fifths of all the accidents that hap- 
pen, by land and sea, are chargeable to the 
same cause, through its effect upon the 
body and mind of man. 

The cars run off the track, because the 
engineer has been drinking ; a bridge or a 
building falls, because the builder, being 
under the influence of liquor at the time, 
failed to build it well; and a steamship, in 
mid-ocean, is set on fire by the carelessness 
of a tipsy hand, and burns to the water's 
edge. 

Even this does not complete the bill. 
The blighting scourge of poverty sweeps 
over half a million families, leaving gaunt 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 265 

hunger and ghastly want in its desolate 
track, from the drunkenness and debauchery 
of husbands and fathers. 

Xor can we begin to estimate the awful 
magnitude of the evil until we begin to add 
together and sum up the items, to find its 
great and calamitous results. 

The myriad forms of mania ; the wide 
and deep cesspool of vulgar blasphemy and 
sin ; the wild horrors of delirium ; the 
nameless mingling of mental diseases and 
temporary insanity, until permanent insanity 
is reached, and twelve thousand raving 
maniacs are thrown into the awful vortex, 
and twice twelve thousand more, shattered, 
ruined minds, wrecked and stranded by 
insanity, and even yet almost insane ; and 
this awful collection, followed by twelve 
thousand slobbering idiots, and twice twelve 
thousand more, poor, demented creatures, 
just a little above idiocy, and fifty thousand 



266 ALCOHOL ; 

more, who are not idiots, but whose minds 
are much inferior to what they might have 
been ; and these followed by the awful 
catalogue of crimes, all the way from petty 
theft and petty assaults up to manslaughter 
and murder ; and these horrors followed by 
the stupendous cost of taking care of these 
unfortunate wretches ; and these a«:ain fol- 
lowed by startling calamities and acci- 
dents that curdle and clog the current 
of one's blood; and, finally, all of these 
overshadowed and darkened by the frowning 
pall of poverty and want. Few minds are 
able to comprehend the awful magnitude of 
the alcoholic horror. Meekly aud modestly 
we bow to the All- Wise Father of Man- 
kind, whose mercy endures forever, and 
beseechingly implore his all-directing aid. 
And be pleased to remember that,, in 
making up these conclusions, we have not 
depended wholly on our own investigations, 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 267 

but have quoted from Drs. Gall, Spurzheim, 
Combe, Fowler, Gray, Brinton, Flint, 
Romberg, Munroe, Cheyne, Bennett, Per- 
cy, Huss, Higginbottom, Cleveland, Morel, 
Bellies, Motet, Mussey, Cox, Sewell, Kerk, 
Allen, Brown, Howe, Storer, Day, and the 
eminent physicians who prepared the med- 
ical articles for the eighth census ; and, 
besides these, have quoted from lawyers, 
statesmen, judges, and clergymen. 

Do you doubt the conclusions? If so, 
then investigation is in vain, and argument 
is folly. I leave the decision of this cause 
to the people, and to posterity. 



VII. 



Alcohol — How much is made ? — How many 
Factories ? — How much Grain and Fruit is used 

IN MAKING IT? — HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE THUS EM- 
PLOYED? — In how many Places is it kept for 
Sale ? — How many People drink it ? — How soon 
do the Victims die? — How many Years of hu- 
man Life are wasted ? — How great is the Num- 
ber of the Dead ? — How many Drinkers are re- 
formed?— And Who? 



YIL 

Having already ascertained the nature of 
alcohol ; having already shown its baneful 
effects upon the human body ; having 
already traced the appalling injuries in- 
flicted, all along its journey through the 
immortal mind ; having demonstrated the 
manner in which it curses the body with 
loathsome diseases, and makes a shattered 
wreck of the ever-living soul ; having pointed 
out the manner in which it injures society, 
and lays its leprous hand upon the human 
race, — my duty as a faithful citizen of the 
great republic requires me to measure the 
quantity that is made and used, and number 
the people who are making, selling, and 
consuming it, — to estimate its magnitude 
as an article of trade and commerce, and 

271 



272 alcohol; 

measure its ruinous influence upon the na- 
tion. 

The task is a great one, and were it not a 
duty, I should gladly leave it to other hands. 
He who shrinks from duty, — he who is 
able to benefit his race by exposing a dan- 
gerous foe, and does not do it, is unworthy 
of himself, — unworthy of the name of 
man. 

I have compiled, from the reports of the 
United States revenue officers, from the 
late census tables of the republic, from 
the census reports of a number of cities, 
from the health reports of cities, asylums, 
and hospitals, and other reliable sources, 
that cannot fail to be of some value to the 
people. 

I have taken the liberty to strike out the 
fractions, so as to- present the facts in whole 
numbers ; and in a few instances, where 
the reports were not sufficiently definite or 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 273 

complete, to make estimates, from the 
partial tables on hand, so as to leave out the 
mass of details, and the multitude of par- 
ticulars, and present only the prominent 
facts and features that are of general inter- 
est to all the people. 

During the year 1867 there was made in 
the United States about one hundred mil- 
lion gallons of distilled spirits, — equal to 
three gallons to every man, woman, and 
child in the whole republic ! 

Now, as one bushel of grain, or its equiva- 
lent in sugar or starch (see Lectures No. 1 
and 2), will only make about four gallons 
of common whiskey, it follows that the man- 
ufacturing of distilled spirits during the year 
consumed twenty-five million bushels of 
grain. 

The city of Chicago alone, with her twen- 
ty-five distilleries, made two million gallons 
of distilled liquors, and used up half a million 
18 



274 alcohol ; 

bushels of grain in doing so. And, as the 
population of Chicago is only a quarter of 
a million, it follows that the liquors made 
here would supply eight gallons to every 
living soul in the corporation, and used 
up two bushels of grain from each and every 
inhabitant. If every other community were 
as industrious in this line of business as the 
city of Chicago, the total number of gallons 
of distilled liquors would be three times 
one hundred million gallons. But we al- 
ways expect Chicago to be a little ahead in 
everything. 

These one hundred million gallons of dis- 
tilled liquors were made in fifteen hundred 
distilleries, scattered all over the land, but 
chiefly in the grain and sugar producing 
sections of the country. For sugar, you 
remember, or starch, which is convertible 
into sugar, is the substance out of which 
alcohol is made. Counting ten men to 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 275 

each distillery (not counting, at present, 
those indirectly employed), there were fif- 
teen thousand men directly employed in 
distilling liquors. 

During the same time there were made 
in the United States four hundred million 
gallons of brewed liquors, — beer, ale, and 
porter, — equal to twelve gallons to each 
and every soul in the great republic ! 

And since one bushel of grain will make 
about twenty gallons of beer, it follows, 
that, in brewing these liquors, twenty mil- 
lion bushels of grain were used. 

Here, again, Chicago is a little ahead ; for 
her forty breweries made, in 1867, eight 
million gallons of beer and ale, — equal to 
thirty-two gallons to each and every one of 
her inhabitants ; and used up four hundred 
thousand bushels of grain, — equal to nearly 
two bushels of grain to each inhabitant. 

But our breweries — like our gentlemen 



276 alcohol; 

and our ladies — are more numerous, per- 
haps, and larger than they are in any other 
community. 

Adding the grain that was distilled to the 
grain that was brewed, in our city, and we 
have nearly four bushels to each inhabitant, 
counting all ages and colors. 

This vast ocean of brewed liquors, 
amounting to four hundred million gallons 
in the United States, was made in three 
thousand breweries, and, allowing five men 
to each brewery, employed directly about 
fifteen thousand men. 

Besides these two great varieties and 
rnodes of producing liquors, — distilling and 
brewing, — there is the third, in commer- 
cial importance, the wine-making interest. 
Wines, you will remember, are made by 
fermenting the sweet juices of various fruits, 
— such as grapes, apples, peaches, and ber- 
ries i and various vegetables, — - such as 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS, 277 

rhubarb, potatoes, and beets. There were 
made in our country, during the year 1867, 
about twenty million gallons of wine. This 
consumed nearly ten million bushels of 
fruits, — the sweetest, nicest, and most de- 
licious fruits of the whole country. 

To make these twenty million gallons of 
wine required the labor, direct, of about 
ten thousand men. 

In addition to these three great sources 
of intoxicating liquors, there is still another, 
— importation. While all these distilleries 
and breweries were busily engaged in mak- 
ing and all these wine (and cider) vats were 
fermenting, many ships and steamers were 
also importing liquors from foreign lands. 
They brought over, in 1867, of all varieties, 
about twenty million gallons. To make 
these foreign liquors, there were consumed, 
beyond the sea, about seven million bushels 



278 alcohol ; 

of grains, fruits, and vegetables, and re- 
quired the labor of about ten thousand men. 
Now let us use a little plain arithmetic, 
a&d see what the sum of all these liquors 
looks like : — 

QUANTITY OF LIQUORS MADE. 

'Distilled liquors, . . . 100,000,000 gallons. 

Brewed liquors, . . . 400,000,000 " 
Wines (fermented juices), 20,000,000 " 
Imported liquors, . . . 20,000,000 " 



Total, . . . 540,000,000 " 

There is enough to float a respectable navy. 
And the grains, fruits, and vegetables 
consumed in making these various liquors, 
were as follows : — 

QUANTITY OF GRAINS AND FRUITS CONSUMED. 

Distilled into whiskey, etc, 25,000,000 bushels. 
Brewed into beer, etc., . 20,000,000 " 
Fermented into wine, etc., 10,000,000 " 
In imported liquors, . . 7,000,000 " 

Total, 62,000,000 " 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 279 

That is, two bushels to each and every 
living soul in the entire nation. No wonder 
provisions are high, and many people are 
hungry. 

Now, as "alcohol is the intoxicating in- 
gredient " in all these liquors (that are not 
adulterated with other poisons), and since 
all that part of them which is not alcohol is 
water, slop, or swill of an inferior grade, 
let us ascertain the amount of pure alcohol 
(supposing that none of them were adulter- 
ated with other instant poisons before leav- 
ing the factory) contained in them. 

Since distilled spirits are about half alco- 
hol (see Lectures No. 1 and 2), brewed 
spirits about seven per cent, alcohol, and 
wines about twenty-one per cent, alcohol, it 
follows that there was made as follows : — 

QUANTITY OF PURE ALCOHOL MADE. 

In distilled spirits, . . . 50,000,000 gallons. 
In brewed spirits, . . . 28,000,000 " 



280 alcohol ; 

In fermented spirits (wine), 4,200,000 gallons. 
In imported spirits, . . 4,800,000 " 



Total, . . 87,000,000 " 

Which is two and a half gallons of alcohol 
for every man, woman, and child that lives 
in the whole of our beautiful land. 

If there is a man in this nation whose 
mind is not blunted by this pestilence, 
whose morals are not polluted by contam- 
ination, and whose body is not diseased and 
besotted, and who loves his kindred and his 
race, let him hear and ponder; and then, 
when he has heard and reflected, let him 
act a»s becomes a man. There is a God in 
heaven ; let not the day of light and justice 
be too long postponed on earth. The 
children of men are hoping, longing, wait- 
ing, for that happy day. When? Oh, 
when? 

Since the balance left, after deducting 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 281 

the pure alcohol, is only water and inferior 
slop, let us ascertain the 

QUANTITY OF SLOP MADE AND MIXED. 

Distilled water, 50,000,000 gaUons. 

Brewed slops, 372,000,000 " 
Fermented slops, 15,800,000 " 
Foreign slops, 15,200,000 " 



Total, 453,000,000 " 

Which is eleven gallons of slop to every 
man, woman, and child. As we don't all 
drink, somebody must drink more than 
eleven gallons a year. No, I thank you ! 
I believe I would rather not. A " peck of 
dirt " in a lifetime is enough. I prefer not 
to mix any fermented slop in my dirt. 

There are, in the United States, about six 
thousand wholesale establishments where 
these various liquors are sold by the quan- 
tity. Five men to each establishment 
would make thirty thousand men engaged 
in the wholesale trade. 



282 alcohol ; 

We have one hundred and twenty-five 
wholesale liquor-houses in Chicago alone. 
We have nearly that number of churches. 
But five men are on duty in each of the 
wholesale liquor-houses six days in a week ; 
while only one man is on duty in each 
church, a small part of one day in each 
week. Thirty days' labor against one is 
hardly fair. Does the world move ? Or is 
there a dead-lock in things generally ? Or 
are we crawfishes, progressing backwards? 

There are, in the republic, about one 
hundred and ten thousand saloons, restau- 
rants, hotels, and stores (not counting drug- 
stores), and steamboats, where alcoholic 
liquors are sold at retail, in which two 
hundred and fifty thousand men and five 
thousand women are engaged. Dividing 
these saloons between thirty-two million 
people, it gives one saloon to every three 
hundred inhabitants. In the country dis- 



ITS NATURE AXD EFFECTS. 283 

tricts and smaller villages there are only 
about half this number, which is one saloon 
to every six hundred people ; but in the 
larger cities about twice this average num- 
ber, which is one saloon to every one hun- 
dred and fifty people. 

I am inclined to think these figures are 
all too low. You will readily see that they 
are too low in our own city of Chicago. Here 
there are about two thousand places where 
liquor is sold at retail to a population of 
two hundred and fifty thousand people : 
which is equal to one saloon to every one 
hundred and twenty-live people. — one to 
every thirty -five male adults instead of 
every one hundred and twenty-live people. 

But Chicago is, perhaps, an exception 
(though I do not think it is), — a liquor 
drinker's Canaan, — a sort of a drunkard's 
Paradise ! Can it be that the day is coming 
in the misty future when another Milton, 



284 ALCOHOL ; 



pure-souled and brilliant, shall tune his all- 
bewailing harp, and sing, in martial and 
mournful numbers, the awful crimes, com- 
bats, and misfortunes of another "Paradise 
Lost"? Let us hope not. Let us hope 
that the good people of this prosperous and 
productive region, who believe in the prin- 
ciples of health and temperance, and who 
take pride in the elevation of the human 
race, will be able to compose the other part 
of the immortal epic, and sing, in trium- 
phant numbers, of a "Paradise Regained" ! 

Let me say that nearly all these figures 
are rather under-estimates, and will fall 
short of the actual facts, all the fractions 
having been struck off in favor of the liquor 
interest, making it less in magnitude than 
it really is. 

Let us figure up the number of men 
directly engaged in making and selling : — 



ITS NATURE AXD EFFECTS. 



285 



Making distilled liquors, . . 


15,000 men 


M 


brewed " . . 


. 15,000 " 


a 


wines (fermented), 


. 10,000 " 


a 


foreign liquors, . . 


. 10,000 " 


Wholes 


sale trade, 


. 30,000 " 


Retail 


Total, 


. 255.000 " 




. 335,000 " 



How long shall this number of men remain 
our masters? 

Then, one hundred and ten thousand sa- 
loons and restaurants are patronized by 
about four million two hundred thousand 
people, which is thirteen per cent, of all the 
people, including women and children. 
This estimate, like the others, is rather too 
small ; but is sufficiently large to startle a 
people who call themselves sober, intelli- 
gent, and moral. 

The four million two hundred thousand 
people who patronize the saloons may be 
divided into classes about as follows : — 



t 
286 alcohol ; 

LIQUOR DRINKERS OR INTEMPERATE PEOPLE. 
MALES. 

Tasters, or occasional smilers, .... 2,000,000 
Moderate drinkers, tipplers, or guzzlers, . 1,500,000 
Hard drinkers, inebriates, or regular topers, 300,000 
Drunken sots, besotted bloats, or regular old 
tubs, 200,000 

Total, 4,000,000 

FEMALES. 

Tasters, or occasional smilers, 100,000 

Moderate drinkers, tipplers, or guzzlers, . 75,000 

Hard drinkers, inebriates, or regular topers, 15,000 
Drunken sots, besotted bloats, or regular old 

tubs, 100,00 

Total, 200,000 

Making a grand total of, 4200,000 

Which is one-seventh of all the people in 

the whole republic. 

In this country one-half of the entire 

number of people are children, under age. 

Now, if we deduct sixteen million children 

from our whole population of thirty-two 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 287 

million, it leaves sixteen million adults, 
which is about eight million men and eight 
million women. 

As already shown, we have four million 
male drinkers, which is one-half of all the 
male adults in the nation : and two hundred 
thousand female drinkers, which is one- 
fortieth of all the adult females in the 
nation. 

The annual table of mortality, which fol- 
lows close behind the drunkenness of the 
people, arranges itself about as follows : — 

MALES. 

Suicides, resulting from the use of liquor. . . 350 

Deaths from delirium tremens, 570 

Murders, resulting from the use of liquor. . . 5S0 
Deaths from mania, madness, and insanity, 

from drinking, 3.700 

Deaths from paralysis, palsy, apoplexy, and 
other diseases of the nerves aad brain, in- 
cluding accidents, arising from excited and 
bewildered mind, clearly traceable to the 



288 alcohol ; 

agency of alcoholic liquors, — and their 
poisonous compounds — as being the cause, 

or principal cause of the same, 5,000 

Deaths from liver, kidney, stomach, bowels, 
heart, and other diseases of the body, clearly 
traceable to the agency of alcoholic liquors, 
and the poisonous adulterations of them, as 
being the cause, or the principal cause of 

the same, 60,800 

Total deaths, males, 71,000 

FEMALES. 

Suicides, resulting from the use of liquors, . . 50 

Deaths from delirium tremens, 30 

Murders, resulting from the use of liquors, . . 20 
Deaths from mania, madness, and insanity, 

from the use of liquors, 300 

Deaths from paralysis, palsy, apoplexy, and 
other diseases of the nerves and brain, in- 
cluding accidents arising from excited and 
bewildered mind, clearly traceable to the 
agency of alcoholic liquors, and their poi- 
sonous compounds, as being the cause, or 

principal cause i- M ie same, 4 

Deaths from liver, kidney, stomach, bowels, 
heart, and other diseases of body, clearly 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 289 

traceable to the agency of alcoholic liquors, 
and the poisonous adulterations of the 
same, as being the cause, or principal cause 
of the same, 3,200 



Total deaths, females, 4,000 

Remember that Dr. Thomas Sewell, of 
Washington, says that K Time would fail 
me, were I to attempt an account of half 
the pathology of drunkenness. Dyspepsia, 
jaundice, emaciation, corpulence, dropsy, 
ulcers, rheumatism, gout, tremors, palpita- 
tion, hysteria, epilepsy, palsy, lethargy, apo- 
plexy, melancholy, madness, delirium tre- 
mens, and premature old age, compose but a 
small part of the catalogue of diseases pro- 
duced by alcoholic drinks. Indeed, there 
is scarcely a morbid affection to which the 
human body is liable, that has not, in one 
way or another, been produced by them. 
There is not a disease but what they have 

19 



290 ALCOHOL ; 

aggravated, nor a predisposition to disease 
which they have not called into action." 

And remember, also, that Dr. Austin 
Flint, of Bellevue Hospital Medical Col- 
lege, New York city, in his great work on 
"The Principles and Practice of Medicine," 
now used by the profession everywhere, 
says: "In cases of chronic alcoholism, the 
digestive powers are weakened, the appe- 
tite is impaired, the muscular system is en- 
feebled, the generative function decays, the 
blood is impoverished, and the nutrition is 
imperfect and diseased, as shown by the 
flabbiness of the skin and muscle, and ema- 
ciation or abnormal accumulation of fat. 
The effects of alcohol enter directly into 
the causation of many affections, such as 
cirrhosis of the liver, fatty liver, epilepsy, 
mu scular tremor, gastritis, pyrosis, various 
dyspeptic disorders, and various lesions of 
the kidneys. Incidentally, alcohol favors 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 291 

the production of nearly all diseases, by 
lessening the power of resisting their causes, 
and contributes to their fatality, by impair- 
ing the inability to tolerate and overcome 
them. Physicians, in these cases, are some- 
times bound by delicacy and by prudential 
considerations to refrain from stating the 
causes." Thus we are told by our teachers 
in medicine. 

And be pleased not to forget that there is 
no well-informed and respectable physician 
in all this land who will undertake to dis- 
prove or deny the foregoing statements of 
Dr. Sewell and Dr. Flint. (See Lectures 
No. 3 and 4.) They are as well established 
as the facts that heat, applied to water, 
creates steam, and that steam can be used 
as a motive-power. 

Now, by adding together the number of 
deaths, which annually follow the drunken- 
ness of both sexes, we have : — 



292 alcohol ; 

Suicides from drunkenness, 400 

Delirium tremens, 600 

Murders from drunkenness, 600 

Deaths from insanity, from drunkenness, * . 3,000 

From other diseases of the nerves and brain, 5,400 

From diseases of the body, from the same, 65,000 

Total number of deaths from drunkenness, 75,000 

Which is more than two thousand out of 
every million people every year. 

So far, in this table of mortality, we have 
not taken into account the wives, sisters, 
and mothers, who die from grief, from 
neglect, and from abuse, through the agency 
of drunken husbands, drunken brothers, and 
drunken sons, which would swell the num- 
ber of deaths far beyond seventy-five thou- 
sand. But we have only considered those 
who have themselves used intoxicating 
liquors to their own great and serious in- 
jury, — so much so as to invite and exag- 



ITS KATUHE AND EFFECTS. 293 

erate other diseases, and become the main 
agents in causing death. 

Since the number of deaths among women 
is about equal to that among men, it fol- 
lows that the women who die heart-broken 
with grief and shame, brooding over long 
neglect and unaccustomed toil, and abused 
by those who should love and protect them, 
ftehtinor in the unequal contest against 
hunger, cold, and want, must be nearly 
equal to the number of males who kill them- 
selves with drunkenness. If these were 
counted among the victims of intoxication, 
— and why should they not be counted, — 
it would swell the number to more than 
one hundred thousand, nearly equal to the 
number of wholesale and retail liquor-shops ! 
The great rebellion, with all its battle-fields 
and dungeons, did not equal this. 

In the normal condition of man, the births 
exceed the deaths a little, and the race in- 



294 alcohol; 

creases. It takes war, pestilence, famine, 
or vice, to make them equal, and stop its 
increase. 

The annual mortality list for the whole re- 
public, from all diseases and causes, of 
both sexes and all ages, is now a little less 
than eight hundred thousand. And we 
have just shown that over seventy-five 
thousand deaths are caused, or very much 
hastened, every year, from intoxicating 
liquors, which is ten per cent, of all the 
deaths in the whole republic. 

But nearly or quite one-half of all the 
deaths are of children before they are live 
years old, which is four hundred thousand. 
And nearly, or quite, seventy-five thousand 
children die between the ages of five and 
fifteen. It is true, that many children, 
neglected or abused by drunken parents, 
or who inherited great weaknesses from 
drunken parents, die earlier than they other- 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 295 

wise would ; and it is true that many chil- 
dren die between the ages of fifteen and 
tfcenty-one ; but, without taking either of 
these facts into consideration at present, we 
deduct the mortality of four hundred and 
seventy-five thousand children from the 
whole number of deaths, and it leaves us a 
mortality of three hundred and twenty-five 
thousand adults. And the seventy-five thou- 
sand who perish, directly and indirectly, 
through the agency of alcoholic liquors, 
fermented, brewed, and distilled, is about 
twenty-five per cent, of all the deaths of 
grown-up people. If we add the poor, 
unfortunate women and children who never 
drank a drop, but who die victims to drunk- 
enness in others, it would be at least thirty- 
three per cent, of all adults, or fifteen per 
cent, of the deaths of all who die. 

From these figures, we see that the drink- 
ing class of community, the tasters, moder- 



296 alcohol ; 

ate drinkers, hard drinkers, and drunken 
sots, all combined, constitute about fifty per 
cent, of all the adult male population, and 
nearly two and a half per cent, of the adult 
females of our land. Not a majority, how- 
ever. 

Let us notice another fact. Nearly all 
the deaths from delirium tremens, and other 
mental diseases, and a large share of the 
worst (alcoholic) physical diseases, come 
from the class of drunken sots, which dimin- 
ishes their number at the rate of twenty- 
five per cent, per annum. This shows that 
the average duration of a man's life, after 
he becomes a regular besotted bloat, is only 
about four years. 

When one of these dies, his place is filled 
from the class of hard drinkers, or inebri- 
ates. And this recruiting process, from the 
one class to the other, goes on at the rate 
of about fifty thousand per annum. At this 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 297 

rate of depletion, and its own losses 
added, the class of hard drinkers will 
exhaust itself in about four years. 

And the class of hard drinkers must be 
replenished from the class of moderate 
drinkers. And in doing so it will exhaust 
itself, including its own losses, mean- 
while, in about four years. And the 
class of moderate drinkers must be replen- 
ished from the tasters ; and, indirectly, 
from this class all the others are recruited. 
If there were no tasters, all the other grades 
and degrees of drinkers would soon perish, 
and cease to exist. 

Now, after deducting the way-side losses, 
while passing from one grade to another, 
we find that the average life of a drinking 
man, after he has fairly become a moderate 
drinker, is only about ten years. 

But, in the ordinary course of nature, all 
those who pass the age of twenty years 



298 alcohol; 

should live to the age of sixty years, or a 
little more. 

How does this fact tally with what we 
have just shown? If a rnan becomes a 
moderate drinker at the age of thirty, he 
drinks himself to death by the time he is 
forty, and dies twenty years before his 
time. Some become moderate, but regular 
drinkers, at twenty, and die of drunkenness 
at thirty, which is thirty years before their 
allotted time. Thus they wickedly throw 
away the last and best half of their lives. 

A young man recently died in this city 
of delirium tremens, who was only twenty- 
two years old. And another one, not many 
weeks before him, died of delirium tremens 
at the age of nineteen. There is a large 
number of young men in this city, between 
the ages of seventeen and twenty, who are 
regular drunkards, and who spend all their 
wages for drink. There are a good many boys 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 299 

working iu the various shops of the cit\\ 
who spend nearly all their earnings for beer, 
and are drunk every Saturday night. And 
some boys, who earn no money themselves, 

are spending their fathers' money for beer 
and wine, and bringing shame upon their 
fathers' memory. 

Boys who drink thus at fifteen can hardly 
reach thirty, and will probably not reach 
twenty-live years. They will die some 
shameful death long before they reach their 
prime. 

A few drunkards manage to retain their 
hold on life for many years ; but such ones 
were fortunate in having a first-class consti- 
tution to start on. fortunate in living an 
active or out-door life, and fortunate in 
getting liquors with less than the average 
number of extra foreign poisons in them. 

But perhaps the average number of years 
lost to the man. who has once become a mod- 



300 alcohol ; 

erate but regular drinker is twenty. And 
these twenty years thus thrown away are 
taken from the later and most valuable part 
of his life. Shame, shame upon those who 
can apologize for and encourage such a reck- 
less waste of human life ! 

But men waste time with drink before 
they die. First their evenings, and then 
their holidays, and then their Sundays, and 
then their week-days. In the course of 
the ten years they are drinking their lives 
away, they waste perhaps two years of 
time. Waste two years of industry, and 
then die twenty years too soon ; making a 
total loss of twenty-two years. 

If the people only knew the facts as set 
forth and proved in this course of lectures, 
nine-tenths of all the tasters, and seven- 
tenths of all the moderate drinkers would 
sign the pledge, and shun this black array 
of evils. 



ITS MATURE AND EFFECTS. 301 

But the people are ignorant. These facts 
are never spread before them in any respon- 
sible manner ; and they do not know the 
awful doom that hangs over them ! 

There is no society strong enough to 
print and circulate these facts among the 
people ! Why cannot the temperance peo- 
ple consolidate into one society, so as to 
print the books and educate the people? 
While you hesitate to unite, the people 
perish. "While Rome debated, Saguntum 
fell : ? ' 

Reformation anions those who si 2m the 
pledge, and join temperance societies or 
churches, in each of these various classes of 
chinking people, can be relied upon about 
as follows, in keeping their pledges, prom- 
ises, and vows : — 

Of the Tasters, about 75 per ct. are faithful. 

t; Moderate Drinkers, " 40 " " " 
" Hard Drinkers, " 5 " " " 

" Drunken Sots, " 1 " " " 



302 ALCOHOL ; 

Since there are about four thousand five 
hundred liquor factions, and one hundred and 
sixteen thousand wholesale and retail liquor- 
shops in the nation, and something over sev- 
enty-five thousand deaths from the liquors 
therein sold, therefore, if the number of 
women and children could be taken into ac- 
count, who die from grief, neglect, abuses, 
and suffering, at the hands of drunken hus- 
bands and fathers, and from diseases inher- 
ited from drunken parents, the number of 
victims will be at least equal to the number 
of liquor establishments. Every liquor es- 
tablishment kills one human being ; and that 
one human being loses twenty-two years 
of the best part of his life. 

But counting only one hundred thousand 
lives, and saving nothing about the time 
wasted previous to death, there would still 
be a waste annually of twenty times one 



* 

ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 303 

hundred thousand, which is two million 
years of life and industry ! 

Let those who share in committing or in 
aiding and abetting this monstrous crime, 
by their acts, by their words, by their ex- 
ample, or by their silence, tremble in their 
wickedness. 

A grim skeleton is in their houses ; the 
blood of the innocent is upon their hands ; 
and the voice of the murdered right cries 
out from the tomb against them ! 



VIII. 



Alcohol — Its Results reduced to Dollars and 
Cents. — What is the Value of the Time and In- 
dustry LOST ? — HOW MUCH MONEY DOES IT TAKE 

to maintain Hospitals for drunken Vagabonds ? 

— What is the Cost of Asylums for Lunatics 
and Idiots ? — What is the Cost of Crimes and 
Prisons ? — How much do we pay our Paupers ? 

— What is the Value of the Property we burn 
and destroy? — Who pays the Taxes? — Does 
this accord with justice, liberty, and law? 

20 * 



YIII. 

In this lecture, let us further consider the 
stupendous facts, as they are set forth in 
the last one. Let us rearrange and com- 
bine these facts, so as to ascertain, more 
fully, their effects upon the people of the 
republic. 

What effect has alcohol upon the produc- 
tive industry of the country ? 

We have already learned that there is a 
class of three hundred and thirty thousand 
men who are directly engaged in making 
and selling liquors, as follows : — 



Making distilled liquors, 


15,000 


men, 


Making brewed " 


, 15,000 


a 


Making wines, 


, 10,000 


a 


Making foreign 


10,000 


a 



307 



308 



ALCOHOL ; 

In wholesale trade, . . 30,000 men. 
In retail trade, . . 250,000 " 



Total, . . . 330,000 

In one year, therefore, there is the enor- 
mous sum of three hundred and thirty- 
thousand years of adult industry thrown 
into this channel. 

The distillers, brewers, and wholesale 
dealers, numbering fifty thousand men, make 
their fortunes out of the business, and fifty 
thousand of the retailers do the same. 
Adding them together, we have one hundred 
thousand men who make princely fortunes 
out of the business. All the rest make 
barely a comfortable living out of it, and 
could do just as well or better in some other 
business. 

It takes about ten years, on an average, 
to make a fortune in the liquor business. 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 309 

Now since liquors, as shown in Lectures 
3, 4, 5, and 6, are so terribly destructive to 
human health, as to destroy, annually, one 
hundred thousand lives, as demonstrated in 
Lecture No. 7, and since those who fail 
victims to drunkenness die twenty years be- 
fore their time, it follows that every time one 
hundred thousand fortunes are made, twen- 
million years of human life are wasted ; which 
is equal to sacrificing two hundred years of 
human life and industry, in order that one 
man shall amass a fortune ! 

And this does not take into account the 
physical and mental diseases, wreck of for- 
tune, and disgrace of family, previous to 
death. Ten men, each become diseased, 
debauched, and degraded, and finally die 
twenty years too soon, in order that one 
man in the traffic shall amass a fortune. 
Has justice departed from the earth? Or 
has the w prince of the powers of darkness " 



310 ALCOHOL ; 

so beclouded the minds of men, that they 
cannot see where justice is ? Are the peo- 
ple in the time of Andrew Johnson supe- 
rior to the people in the time of Julius 
Caesar? How much? 

Besides this large sum of direct industry 
thus engaged, there is a vast amount of in- 
dustry indirectly engaged in the business. 
For convenience, let us divide this indirect 
industry into two divisions, and call it the 
second and third classes of industry in the 
liquor trade. 

The men composing the second class are 
engaged in preparing materials with which 
to build distilleries, breweries, vaults, and 
cellars, and building the same, including 
those engaged in making machinery, barrels, 
and bottles, and in carting and shipping liq- 
uors and materials. This second class num- 
bers, perhaps, three hundred and fifty thou- 
sand men. 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 311 

And the third class is engaged in raising 
sugars, grains, fruits, vegetables, and hops, 
and in buying and shipping the same to 
market. These number, perhaps, about 
three hundred and twenty thousand men. 
And these three classes, added together, 
foot up as follows : — 

Making and selling liquors, . 330.000 men. 
Making buildings and machinery, 350,000 " 
Raising grains and shipping, . 320,000 " 

Total, .... 1,000,000 " 

This shows that one million years of in- 
dustry are annually thus directed. And it 
shows us that one million people take this 
means of making a living for themselves. 

If the whole business were to be forbid- 
den by law, the first class named above 
would be thrown out of employment. But 
it does not follow that they would be seri- 
ously injured thereby. ' Men often quit one 



312 alcohol ; 

business and go into another, and are more 
prosperous in the second than they were in 
the first. They would only have to change 
the direction of their industry. And many 
of their buildings and much of their machin- 
ery could be used in the new direction. 

The second class could go on just as they 
are, piling up buildings and making ma- 
chinery to fill them ; but the buildings and 
machinery would be for flouring-mills and 
saw-mills, and for manufacturing other 
things, such as cotton, woollen, leather, and 
other goods ; and part of the machinery and 
implements made by this class would be for 
cars and steamers. 

The effect would be to make flour, and 
lumber, and cotton goods, and woollen 
goods, and boots and shoes, more abun- 
dant, and therefore cheaper ; and additional 
machinery for shipping and travelling being 
more abundant, shipping and travelling 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 313 

would be less expensive. This, I think, 
would be the result of turning the produc- 
tions of the industry of three hundred and 
fifty thousand mechanics and laborers into 
other lines of useful industry. 

But if flour and lumber are made cheaper, 
and cotton, woollen, and leather goods are 
reduced in price, and the means of travelling 
are made cheaper, who has been injured by 
the change ? Let the defenders of alcohol 
come before the people and answer, if they 
dare. 

Again ; if the grains and fruits raised; by 
three hundred and twenty thousand people, 
— amounting to sixty-two million, bushels, 
as shown in Lecture No. 7, — if all these 
are not fermented (rotted) and distilled, 
they will remain in the market as provis- 
ions and feed. People will raise more 
stock and feed them better with part of the 
surplus grain, which will increase the quan- 



314 ALCOHOL ; 

tity of meat, and of course reduce the price ; 
the remainder of the extra fruits and grains 
will remain upon the market as provisions 
for men ; and the quantity being increased, 
the price will be reduced in proportion. 

Well, if meat becomes cheaper, and bread 
becomes cheaper, and fruits become cheaper, 
and all kinds of clothing cheaper, and tools, 
conveniences, and comforts are all multi- 
plied and reduced in price, "who is hurt" 
by the operation? Tell me, — who is 
abused ? 

Wheat is now worth two dollars a bushel, 
and a good cook-stove is worth forty dollars, 
so that twenty bushels of wheat will buy a 
cook-stove. Now, supposing we stop the dis- 
tilleries and breweries, and the price of wheat 
comes down to one dollar a bushel, and we 
put the distillers and their steam-machinery 
to making stoves, until they are reduced to 
twenty dollars. Who is hurt? Twenty 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 315 

bushels of wheat will still buy a cook-stove, 
the same as before. There is more wheat in 
the world, and more stoves to cook it in. 
So that many people who could before hard- 
ly afford to buy either wheat or stove, will 
now be able to have both. Please tell me, 
who is damaged? 

Men who have families can provide for 
them more easily ; and there will be some 
inducement for young men and bachelors 
to marry. Will that hurt anybody ? 

What do you work for, anyhow? What 
do you live for? If you have plenty to eat, 
good clothes to wear, comfortable shelter, a 
good healthy place to sleep, and are sur- 
rounded by fat horses and cattle, and sup- 
plied with all kinds of comforts, conven- 
iences, and luxuries, what more do you 
want? 

Some people are so shamefully ignorant, 
and so contemptibly mean, that if they 



316 alcohol; 

owned a square mile of heaven, with all its 
joys, they would not be satisfied until they 
had swapped it for a small vacant lot on one 
of the back alleys of hell. I do not wish to 
flatter such people or I would call them stupid. 

Only one hundred thousand men make 
fortunes out of the business, while thirty- 
one million nine hundred thousand lose by 
the traffic, as they have to pay more for 
the necessaries and comforts of life than 
they would if it were suppressed. Thus 
we see that three hundred and twenty men 
lose, in order that one man may make. Is 
that fair ? Is that economy ? 

But supposing that all who are engaged 
in the liquor traffic, directly and indirectly, 
made more money than they could in any 
other way, to the full number of one mil- 
lion men, while all the rest of the people 
were losers, is that fair? Is it right to 
tax thirty-one people, in order to enrich 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 317 

one person, and that one no better than the 
rest ? Would it be fair to tax four persons 
to enrich us? What becomes of the good 
old democratic maxim, "The greatest good 
of the greatest number " ? 

Is it fair, even, to tax one man to enrich 
another? If so, then what, in the name of 
all that is holy, do you understand by the 
words justice and equity? 

But let us take another view of the sub- 
ject. Let us open the books and examine 
the accounts. What is the cost of our 
alcoholic liquors in cash? 

LOSS OF INDUSTRY. 

Suppose that a day's labor is worth one 
dollar and board, and that there are three 
hundred working days in a year. Then 
the one million people engaged in the 
liquor business would be worth three hun- 
dred million dollars a year. And the two 



318 alcohol; 

million years ot life and health (and there- 
fore industry) that are annually destroyed, 
would be worth six hundred million dollars, 
or a total of nine hundred million dollars. 

COST OF INSANITY. 

The building of asylums, and furnishing 
medicines and comforts for four thousand 
insane people, who die after three years of 
insanit}', at an average cost of one thousand 
dollars a year for each lunatic, amounts to 
twelve million dollars a year. And at the 
same rate for the eight thousand lunatics 
who do not die, but who are cured after three 
years of treatment in the asylum, twenty- 
four million dollars. Making a total of 
thirty-six million dollars, as the annual cost 
of the insanity caused by drunkenness. 

COST OF IDIOCY. 

Add to this the cost of feeding, clothing, 
and providing for twelve thousand idiots or 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 319 

fools, at an average cost of five hundred dol- 
lars a year for each fool, six million dollars. 
But if these fools had been rational beings, we 
should have had their industry, worth three 
hundred dollars each a year. Suppose the 
average age of a fool to be thirty years (a 
shortening of life not heretofore considered) , 
it follows that during the last ten years of his 
life — from the age of twenty to thirty — he 
could have earned three thousand dollars. 
And the whole number of fools, at this rate, 
could have earned thirty-six million dollars. 
All this is lost industry. Adding the cost of 
maintaining them, and the loss of their ten 
years' industry (and it should be more than 
ten), we have forty-two million dollars, as 
the annual cost of the idiocy of drunkenness. 

COST OF CRIME. 

The expense of arresting, confining, con- 
victing, and executing four hundred mur- 

16 



320 alcohol ; 

derers every year, at an average cost of five 
thousand dollars each, amounts to two mil- 
lion dollars. The expense of building — 
more especially of enlarging — and guarding 
forty State prisons, and detecting, arresting, 
convicting, and maintaining the twenty thou- 
sand convicts confined therein, for crimes 
committed through the agency of liquors, at 
an average cost of seven hundred dollars a 
year for each convict, amounts to fourteen 
million dollars. The expense of enlarging 
jails, and detecting, arresting, feeding, try- 
ing, and punishing persons for two hundred 
thousand minor crimes and misdemeanors, 
committed through intoxication, at an aver- 
age of one hundred dollars each, amounts to 
twenty million dollars. Making a total an- 
nual cost of the crimes of intoxication, about 
thirty-six million dollars. 

COST OF PUBLIC HOSPITALS. 

Let us add the cost of building and sup- 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 321 

porting two hundred hospitals for one 
hundred thousand people, who ruin their 
health and squander their fortunes for drink, 
and corrupt themselves with filthy diseases, 
which have to be cured or the patient buried 
at public expense, at the rate of one hun- 
dred dollars for each patient, amounts to ten 
million dollars annually. 

COST OF PAUPERISM. 

We must not fail to take into account the 
cost of maintaining five hundred thousand 
paupers, who become paupers through the 
agency of drunkenness. Part of these are 
supported by direct taxation, and part by 
public and private charity, and at the rate of 
one hundred dollars a year for each pauper, 
amounts to fifty million dollars annually. 

LOSSES BY ACCIDENTS. 

Nor must we fail to take into considera- 
tion the vast amount of property, in build- 
21 



322 alcohol ; 

ings, vessels, goods, and provisions, that 
are burned, sunk, and destroyed every 
year, through the drunkenness of owners 
and agents (and many lives are lost in this 
way, not heretofore considered), the loss of 
which property often falls heavily upon inno- 
cent parties, who never use liquors them- 
selves, and therefore is in the nature of a 
tax upon sober people, amounting to over 
fifty million dollars more. 

Now, let us add up these various items of 
cost, and see what the whole amount will 
look like : — 



Loss of time and industry, .... $900,000,000 

Cost of insanity, 36,000,000 

Cost of idiocy, 42,000,000 

Cost of crime, 36,000,000 

Cost of sickness in hospitals, . . . 10,000,000 

Cost of pauperism, 50,000,000 

Losses by accidents, 50,000,000 

Total cost of drunkenness, .... $1,124,000,000 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 323 

Call it an even billion. A billion a year [ 
And those who have followed me through 
these lectures will not say this is an over- 
estimate. 

And all this in order to gratify a per- 
verted appetite for a noxious article, and 
to allow one hundred thousand men to ac- 
cumulate vast fortunes. 

If we should leave off (though why 
should we?) the first item in the above 
sum, we still have to pay, annually, over 
two hundred millions of dollars, which is a 
tax upon honest and temperate people ? 

You all know that during the year 1867 
the liquor men did not pay but one- 
twentieth of their share even, of these 
enormous taxes, either local or national. 

Is that justice? Is it right that you 
should be forced to pay such heavy taxes, to 
support a God-condemned and hell-deserv- 
ing incubus upon society, that you hate and 



324 alcohol ; 

abhor, and that injures two hundred and 
ninety-nine people where it benefits but 
one ? Is that justice ? 

Are you a free people, and submit to 
such outrages? He who knowingly sub- 
mits to a monstrous and infamous injustice, 
without protest, is either a slave, or a 
coward, or both combined. 

What becomes of your boasted liberty, if 
you have to bow, and cringe, and pay 
forcible tribute to a hateful and cruel des- 
potism ? 

What is liberty? I understand liberty 
to be the right to do as you please, so far as 
you can without interfering with other 
people's equal right to do as they please ; 
the right to do as you desire, provided 
you do not injure others ; the right to do 
whatever is right. 

Now, if the whole entire liquor traffic were 
prohibited by law, we should not only have 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 325 

two hundred thousand dollars less local taxes 
and losses to pay, but we should have bet- 
ter health, sounder morals, longer life, and 
two hundred thousand dollars more to pay 
with, — making a vast difference in our favor. 

Is it risrht for one set of men to interfere 
with the rights of another set in this way ? 

What is law? Blackstone says, "Law is 
a rule of action, emanating from the su- 
preme power of the State, commanding 
what is right and prohibiting what is 
wrong." Liberty says, you may do what- 
ever is right. Law says, you shall do 
whatever is right. The one permits and 
the other commands the practice of the 
great principle of right. You may and 
shall do right ; but you may not, and shall 
not do wrong. So say liberty and law. 
But the liquor business comes forward and 
says, like this : — 

"Hear, all ye people of the world! 



326 ALConoL; 

Hear ! I claim the right to load the bodies 
of men with a slow, lingering disease, so 
that after ten years of suffering, they shall 
die some horrible and disgraceful death, at 
the rate of one hundred thousand a year ; I 
claim the right to injure the minds of men, 
so as to send twelve thousand raving mani- 
acs to the lunatic asylum, and twelve thou- 
sand more to the asylum for idiots ; I claim 
the right to so madden the people with un- 
governable frenzy, as to make six hundred 
kill themselves ; but before they die, to 
kill, with heartless ferocity, four hundred 
innocent victims, and make six hundred 
more perish with fierce and wild delirium ; 
I claim the right, during the ten years these 
people are drinking themselves to death, to 
send one hundred thousand of them to the 
hospitals with disease, to make them 
squander their money and property, and 
the money and property of their families, 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 327 

and waste their time and shorten their lives, 
amounting to three million years of life and 
industry; I claim the right, during the 
same ten years, to cause the people to com- 
mit a vast number of heinous crimes and 
offences, so as to keep twenty thousand in 
the state prisons of the land, and to cause 
two hundred thousand petty crimes and 
misdemeanors against the peace and good 
order of society, and make them harsh and 
cruel to their once-lovecl wives and helpless 
babes ; I claim the right to make five hun- 
dred thousand paupers and beggars, so as to 
crush out their dignity and self-respect, and 
blight their hopes forever; I claim the 
right to destroy with midnight flames, vast 
amounts of property by land and sea; I 
claim the ris;ht to tax the honest and tern- 
perate people of the country, without their 
cousent, to pay for all these woes and 
calamities, to the amount of two hundred mil- 



328 ALCOHOL. 

lion dollars a year ; I claim the right to refuse 
to pay more than one-twentieth of the taxes 
which the laws of the land have assessed as 
my share, and the right to force honest peo- 
ple to pay them for me ; I claim to be above 
the law and beyond the law ; I claim the 
right to dwarf the intellect and corrupt the 
morals of the people, and corrupt the hearts 
of the lawgivers, and corrupt those whom 
the people elect to enforce the laws ; and I 
not only claim these rights, but, in the name 
of wickedness, my birthright, and depravity, 
my acquired knowledge, and passion, my 
strength, and covetousness, the grand aim 
of my life, I will exercise these rights, 
law or no law ; for I have usurped the 
authority to rule and ruin the earth ! Hear, 
people, hear ! " 



IX. 



ALCOHOL — IS IT EVER ADULTERATED OR COUN- 
TERFEITED ? — What are some of the Substances 
used in its Adulteration ? — Are any of these 
Substances Poison ? — What are organic vegeta- 
ble Alkalies ? — Are they cheaper than Alcohol 
itself ? — how much cheaper ? — to what extent 
are alcoholic liquors adulterated ? — is it a 
Crime to put deadly Poisons in Liquors? 



IX. 

Let us now pursue our subject — alcohol 
— into another field ; the field where it be- 
comes counterfeited and adulterated with 
other substances, more deadly than itself. 

On passing the outer gates of this field, 
we notice that it is a rough and forbidding 
region, traversed by deep and dark ravines, 
out of which lead broad caves and gloomy 
caverns, in which are scattered a wilderness 
of bones. 

Our visit into this broken wilderness is 
no pleasure trip, no holiday journey for the 
gratification of romantic ideas, into the wild 
regions of nature ; but rather a deliberate, 
though reluctant invasion of the jungles and 
caverns and fortifications of a deadly foe. 

331 



332 ALCOHOL ; 

Without an invitation, we propose to enter 
the dragon-guarded labyrinths, where the 
infernal monster hides. Hitherto we have 
considered our subject in the light of a reg- 
ular business, the same as any other article 
of trade and commerce. We now come to 
examine that part of it where deliberate, 
premeditated fraud is committed, in making 
drugged, counterfeited, and adulterated 
shams, down in dingy rooms, where the 
doors are barred and guarded, where the 
conversation is in whispers, and where 
winks, nods, and secrecy, cover up a deep- 
dyed and deliberate villany, compared 
with which, all that has been said against 
alcohol, in the foregoing lectures, becomes 
commonplace and tame. 

Open and high-handed rascality may be 
considered honorable, when compared with 
that which goes down, deliberately, into 
concealed cellars, and in darkness develops 



ITS NATUKE AXD EFFECTS. 333 

its infernal schemes for accomplishing wick- 
edness and crime. 

If a man counterfeits a dollar-bill, you 
arrest him, try him, and send him to the 
penitentiary. And yet he has only de- 
frauded a few people out of their property 
or money, by giving, in exchange, the 
worthless bills. 

Xo person's health is injured, no one's 
mind is deranged, nobody's days are short- 
ened, no life is taken, but only a little prop- 
erty lost by this false and sham equivalent, 

— that is all. 

But you punish the man who counterfeits 
money, by close confinement and hard labor 
in prison ; and you confiscate and destroy 
his dies and plates, and burn all his false 
paper, by order of the courts of law. 

Then why not arrest and punish the man, 

— I beg pardon; I do not wish to disgrace 
the name of w man " in that way, — why not 



334 ALCOHOL ; 

punish the vile miscreant who counterfeits 
intoxicating liquors? 

He counterfeits an article that is to be 
taken into the human stomach ; that is to 
pass into the human heart ; that is to be fil- 
tered through the human liver ; that is to 
circulate in the human blood. He puts 
poisonous drugs into his counterfeits, that 
injure human health, and shorten human 
life. 

Why do you not punish him? Why 
should one counterfeiter be arrested and 
punished, while a worse one is permitted 
to follow his infamous trade ? 

In many of our cities it is the law that 
if a market-woman adulterates her butter, 
by putting lard in the middle of the lump, 
she shall be arrested, have her adulterated 
mixture confiscated, and be fined for fraud. 
How ready those cities are to punish a poor 
woman for a little, petty adulteration of an 



ITS NATURE A2H> EFFECTS. 335 

article of food, although she merely mixes 
another article of food ! 

Suppose she were to mix in a little 
strychnine, — what a monstrous hue-and- 
cry there would be raised ! The pictorial 
papers would have her likeness engraved, 
and emblazon it as "The Great Female 
Demon ! " 

What has she done? "She has put lard 
in her butter, and mixed in a little strych- 
nine, and sold it, — the hussy: and rnade 
two cents clear, by the nefarious operation ! " 

But the business of adulterating intoxi- 
cating liquors is largely carried on, in al- 
most every city and village in the republic, 
into which strychnine and other poisons are 
mixed, causing extensive injuries to the 
health of the people, and destroying many 
lives, in order that the counterfeiters may 
accumulate vast wealth by wickedness and 
fraud. 



336 alcohol ; 

Why not pounce upon these, with the 
same ferocity that you would upon the poor 
butter-woman? Are you afraid of the 
scoundrels? Or do you not know how to 
detect them? Is it cowardice? Or is it 
ignorance? Or has the morality of this 
people become so stultified, that they wil- 
fully sustain partiality, injustice, and 
wrong? Consistency is a jewel. Let us 
try to possess it. 

Why do people adulterate liquors? 
Why ? To obtain money without returning 
an equivalent, of course, the same as in all 
other varieties of fraud. 

And therefore the articles used must be 
cheaper than the liquors themselves. 

And what are these articles? What are 
liquors adulterated with? 

To answer this question we must subdi- 
vide it. There is one set of ingredients, 
used to adulterate the alcohol itself; 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 337 

another set used to give the color; and 
others to give age and bead; and all to 
deceive. 

If you wanted to convert one gallon of 
new corn whiskey into four gallons of old 
peach brandy, you would use one set of 
ingredients ; into old Jamaica rum, another 
set; into best Holland gin, another set; 
and if you wanted to convert it into ten 
gallons of old port wine, you would use 
still another set of ingredients, though the 
one used in the place of alcohol might be 
the same in all cases. The coloring and 
flavoring would be different, though the 
"drunk" ingredient might be the same. 
These ingredients, and the receipts for 
using them, are extensively known among 
liquor men, and just as extensively used. 

And first, as to the adulterating of al- 
cohol itself, — "the thing what makes the 
drunk come." 



338 ALCOHOL ; 

We have shown, in Lectures No. 1 and 2, 
that alcohol is an irritant or stimulating 
poison, vegetable in its origin, and narcotic 
in its tendency. 

It follows naturally that any other poi- 
son that is irritant or stimulating in its 
action, vegetable in its origin, and narcotic 
in its tendency, will produce similar, if not 
identical effects. 

They must irritate the membranes of the 
body, benumb sensation, and make one 
dizzy ; and in larger doses must interfere 
with motion. 

There are a number of poisons that will 
answer the description, and do all these 
things. They are generally called, in the 
dispensatories and chemistries, the "or- 
ganic vegetable alkalies," but are some- 
times called poisons, sometimes called 
vegetable irritants, sometimes called nar- 
cotics, sometimes called stimulant narcotics, 



ITS NATUEE AST* EFFECTS. 839 

sometimes called anodyne narcotics, and 
some of them are called by other names. 

Ibu:- :.!■;■ ".'::_• :u r u: _ .-::u rut among them : — 

STRYCHVIXE. 
STKAVvVJUM. 
BELI.aDO>~>~A. 
TOBACCO, 

coccrixs, 

OPIUM. 

Now, as the action of all these organic 
able alkalies npon the human system, 

is ve: . it :;i:~'--s that 

that Article, the ezbot will he Labour the 
sante. 

Let us notice one fact. A bushel :-f the 
sweetest and best corn ~~ih ::"v nauhe three 
.: pure whiskey. 

But since the distillers have learned hew 



340 ALCOHOL ; 

to mix strychnine in their yeast, with which 
they ferment their "mash" (corn meal and 
warm water), they have been able to aver- 
age four gallons to the bushel ; which is 
now the average throughout the land. 

This shows that twenty-five per cent, of 
what purports to be the alcoholic strength 
of the common corn whiskey of the country 
is, in reality, its strychnine strength ! 

Strychnine is so very strong that it takes 
but little of it, when added to the bushel of 
corn, to make the additional gallon of 
whiskey. Three cents' worth of strychnine 
and a gallon of water, added to the original 
three gallons of whiskey from a bushel, 
makes four gallons from a bushel ; and all 
sold to the people for pure whiskey ! 

Is that fraud ? Or what would you call 
it? Is it a legitimate transaction? Call it 
what you will, there stands the naked 
fact. 



ITS NATURE AXD EFFECTS. 341 

One drug-house in London, last year, 
sold to one liquor firm in that city more 
strychnine than the whole medical profes- 
sion of the city would require in the same 
time. 

You all remember, only a few years ago, 
when the distillers in the Miami Valley 
undertook to make five or six and even 
seven gallons of whiskey out of a bushel of 
corn, by adding more strychnine; and as 
some of the additional strychnine remained 
in the slop, it killed the hogs. 

They overdid the thing a little, — that was 
tH. 

Vast quantities of stiychnine are still used 
in most of the distilleries of the country; 
but the hogs get less of it, and do not often 
die. » 

But the man who drinks four gallons of 
corn whiskey now, drinks one gallon of 
strychnine and water. 



342 alcohol ; 

Xo wonder pork is unhealthy. Xo won- 
der drunkards die. Xo wonder distillers 
get rich. 

Strychnine is found in a number of sub- 
stances, but chiefly in the seeds and bark 
of the mix vomica tree, and the bean of 
Saint Ignatius. These plants are now ex- 
tensively cultivated, and their product en- 
ters largely into the trade of the druggists. 
For further particulars with regard to it, 
and its effects upon the human system, I 
refer you to the United States Dispensatory, 
and the American Dispensatory, found in 
all drug stores, and also to the various 
medical dictionaries and materia medicas 
in your family physician's library. 

Talk about "pure whiskey, right fresh 
from the distillery ! *' People who talk thus 
do not know what they are talking about. 
There is very little — if any — r pure 
whiskey*' made. 



ITS NATURE ASB EFFECTS. 343 

Stramonium is, perhaps, the next most 
popular poison in adulterating liquors. 
This is made from the juice of a poison- 
ous weed, which grows almost everywhere, 
and is therefore cheap. It is sometimes 
called Jimson weed, and sometimes thorn- 
apple weed, and grows of its own accord 
by the roadside, and in vacant lots every- 
where. It is kept in the drug-stores in the 
form of fluid, or solid extract of stramo- 
nium. 

This poison, although extensively used in 
the yeast of the distilleries the same as 
strychnine, is far more generally used in the 
retail shops. Receipts for making stramo- 
nium whiskey are sold by fourth-rate chem- 
ists to the retailers at enormous prices. 

A retailer buys a gallon of corn whiskey, 
the intoxicating strength of which is already 
one-fourth strychnine, and proceeds, accord- 



344 alcohol ; 

ing to receipt, to make two gallons out of 
it, by adding stramonium and water ! 

But as stramonium is likely to cramp the 
stomach of the drinker, a little opium is 
added to prevent cramping, and a little 
potash has to be added to counteract the 
peculiar taste and smell, — the ingredients 
costing four or five cents. 

Some folks think this is an honest busi- 
ness ; and some folks don't. Just owing 
to how you were raised and educated. 

Two fishermen, in a little town on the 
Ohio River, bought a pint of whiskey and 
went up the river to fish. That afternoon 
they were both found, on the bank of the 
river, dead. The bottle was empty v When 
the retailer heard they were dead, he im- 
mediately emptied that keg of w 7 hiskey into 
a ditch. As the proof was destroyed, of 
course he was not found guilty. In all 
probability he, through mistake, put more 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 345 

stramonium into the strychnine whiskey 
than he intended, or perhaps forgot to add 
the requisite amount of water. The fisher- 
men are dead , and who is to blame ? 

As some of you will not take the trouble 
to examine the United States Dispensatory 
for yourselves, I will read a few passages 
from that standard work : — 

r Stramonium is a powerful narcotic. 
When taken in quantities sufficient to affect 
the system moderately, it usually produces 
more or less cerebral disturbance, indicated 
by vertigo (dizziness, or swimming of the 
head;, headache, dimness or perversion of 
vision, and confusion of thought, sometimes 
amounting to a slight delirium, or a species 
of intoxication. A disposition to sleep is 
sometimes, but not uniformly, produced. 
When taken in poisonous doses, this nar- 
cotic produces cardialgia, excessive thirst, 
nausea and vomiting ; a sense of strangula- 



346 alcohol ; 

tion, anxiety, and faintness ; partial or com- 
plete blindness, with dilatation of the pupil ; 
vertigo, delirium, sometimes of a furious, 
sometimes of a whimsical character, tremors 
of the limbs, palsy, and ultimately stupor 
and convulsions. From all these symptoms 
the patient may recover ; but in numerous 
instances they l?ave terminated in death. 
It has long been known as a poisonous and 
intoxicating herb." 

There it is in plain English : R A poison- 
ous and intoxicating herb." 

Is that new to you? Those same words 
have been printed and tying on the counters 
of all your drug-stores for more than forty 
years. And it has been known to the 
knowing ones in the liquor business for 
twice forty years. And they have been 
making good use of their knowledge, as 
shown in the fact that they have amassed 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 347 

vast fortunes, while your sons and brothers 
have gone to early graves. 

Can you respect and love a man who 
makes and sells to your young and inexpe- 
rienced son a mixture of alcohol, strych- 
nine, stramonium, opium, and water, which 
makes him sick and delirious, or perhaps 
takes his young life ? Your organ of friend- 
ship is stronger than mine, if you can. 

Belladonna sometimes goes by the name 
of deadly nightshade. It is a perennial 
plant, and grows everywhere, — in shady 
places, in the fence-corners, and by the side 
of walls. Its berry, when ripe, is a dark- 
purple, and has a sweetish taste. The 
whole thing is poison, — roots, stalks, leaves, 
berries and all. Let me read a little from 
the United States Dispensatory : — 

"The action of belladonna is that of a 
powerful narcotic. It has little intensity 
of local action, but is absorbed; and, enter- 



348 ALCOHOL ; 

ing the circulation, exercises its influence 
upon the nervous system, especially upon 
the brain. Among its first obvious effects, 
when taken in the usual dose, and contin- 
ued for some time, are dryness and strict- 
ure of the fauces and neighboring parts, 
with slight uneasiness or giddiness of the 
head, and more or less dimness of vision. 
In large quantities, belladonna is capable 
of producing the most deleterious effects. 
It is, in fact, a powerful poison, and -many 
instances are recorded in which it has been 
accidentally swallowed, or purposely ad- 
ministered, with fatal consequences. Soon 
after the poison has been swallowed, its 
peculiar influence is experienced, in dryness 
of the mouth and fauces, great thirst, diffi- 
cult deglutition, nausea, and ineffectual 
retching, vertigo, intoxication, or delirium, 
attended with violent gestures, and some- 
times with fits of laughter, and followed 






ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 349 

with a comatose (benumbed and sleepy or 
stupid and drowsy) state." 

There you have it, in good old English : 
"Intoxication or delirium, attended with 
violent gestures, and sometimes with loud 
laughter, and followed with drowsiness, 
stupidity, and insensibility." 

Did you ever see any one act in that way 
after drinking the common liquors of your 
market? You all have. 

Most drinkers, when they go into a saloon, 
expect to get something " that will make. the 
drunk come." And they are not particular 
what it is. The shrewd men in the liquor 
business have known, for the last fifty years, 
that belladonna would "fetch the drunk, '' 
and have arranged their business accord- 
ingly. 

Now, as belladonna grows wild every- 
where, and can be easily obtained, and as it 
is so powerful that just a little bit of it will 



350 ALCOHOL ; 

make a gallon of drunk-water, it follows 
that it must be cheap. 

About two cents' worth will make a gal- 
lon of liquor, which sells in our market, at 
wholesale, for a dollar and a half. 

You will find it in the drug-stores in the 
shape of fluid and solid extract of bella- 
donna. 

A distiller sells a gallon of strychnine 
whiskey to a wholesaler. While in the 
wholesaler's warehouse it is made into two 
gallons of whiskey, by adding stramonium 
and opium, the additional gallon costing 
three or four cents. Then it is sold to the 
retailer. In the retailer's back cellar it is 
again adulterated and made into four gal- 
lons, by adding belladonna, the two addi- 
tional gallons costing two or three cents 
each. 

Eetailed at ten cents a drink, the profits 
are tolerably handsome, I th#nk you! 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 351 

Only about six or seven dollars' profit on 
each gallon. 

Perhaps you call that a legitimate trans- 
action. Well, some people will have queer 
notions. I was not brought up in that way. 
My early education must have been sadly 
neglected. 

You will arrest a market-woman for put- 
ting four ounces of lard into a pound of 
butter, — will you ? But strychnine whiskey, 
adulterated with stramonium, and bella- 
donna, and opium, is legitimate. Shame, 
shame ! 

The Legislature of Ohio directed Dr. 
Hiram Cox, a distinguished chemist of Cin- 
cinnati, to analyze and examine the liquors 
in that market. He labored more than two 
years ; but, meanwhile, the liquor men 
brought their influence to bear upon the 
legislature so as to suppress his report, 
and it has never been published. But he 



352 alcohol; 

has written a number of letters, from one 
of which, written to James Black, of Lan- 
caster, Penn., I will read a few lines : — 

" I was appointed to the office of Chemi- 
cal Inspector on the 19th of March, 1855. 
Since then I have made over six hundred 
inspections of stores, and lots of liquors, of 
every variety, and now positively assert 
that over ninety per cent, of all that I have 
analyzed were adulterated with the most 
pernicious and poisonous ingredients ! " 

I shall not have time to quote very much 
from him, but will only take time to quote 
one out of the host of his experiments. He 
says, "I called at a grocery store one day, 
where liquor was being sold. A couple of 
Irishmen came in while I was there, and 
called for some whiskey. The first one 
drank, and the moment he drank, the tears 
flowed freely, while he, at the same time, 
caught his breath like one suffocating or 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 353 

strangling. When he could speak, he said 
to his companion, ? Och, Michael, by the 
powers bat this is warming to the stoomach, 
sure ! ' Michael drank, and went through 
like contortions, with the remark, * Troth, 
and wouldn't it be foin on a could frosty 
morning, Timothy? ' After they had drank 
I asked the proprietor to pour me out a 
little in a tumbler. I went to my office, 
got my instruments, and examined it. I 
found it seventeen per cent, alcoholic spirits, 
when it should have been fifty, and the dif- 
ference in percentage was made up by sul- 
phuric acid, red pepper, petitory, caustic 
potash, brucine, and one of the salts of nux 
vomica (strychnine). One pint of such 
liquor (at one time) would kill the strong- 
est man. I had the manufacturer indicted. 
But by such villany he has become wealthy ; 
and I never have, owing to some defect in 

1 23 



354 alcohol ; 

the law, been able to bring that case to a 
final issue." 

Cocculus is the fruit of an East Indian 
plant. It is sometimes called cocculus indi- 
cus, and sometimes animesta. 

Ten thousand pounds of it were shipped to 
Great Britain in a single year, and used in 
adulterating liquors. With that article our 
British cousins made not less than one hun- 
dred and fifty thousand barrels of beer, equal 
to six million gallons. Mr. Morris, a London 
brewer, says, "Cocculus is used as a substi- 
tute for both malt and hops." Let us read 
from the United States Dispensatory : " Coc- 
culus acts upon the system in the same man- 
ner of the other acrid, narcotic poisons 
(such as strychnine, stramonium, bella- 
donna, tobacco, opium, and others), but is 
never given (as a medicine) internally. In 
India they put it into the water so as to 
stupefy the fishes, in order that they rriby be 



ITS NATUBE AND EFFECTS. 355 

caught. It has been given to dogs, in the 
quantity of five or ten grains, and produced 
convulsions and death. In Europe it is said 
to be added to malt liquors, in order to give 
them bitterness and intoxicating properties : 
although the practice is forbidden by law, 
in England, under heavy penalties.*' 

Thus reads the Dispensatory. But perhaps 
you were not aware of the fact that it is, at 
this hour, extensively used, not only in 
England, and throughout all Europe, but 
largely in the United States, for adulterating 
all kinds of intoxicating liquors. And it 
would be still more largely used here if it 
were cheaper. The depravity of the de- 
praved is cunning and ingenious in search- 
ing out the means for accomplishing fraud. 

TTe now come to tobacco, which is cheap- 
er yet, and easier to get hold of. Perhaps 
you were not aware that immense quantities 



356 alcohol ; 

of liquors were adulterated with "dog-leg." 
Well, such is the unfortunate fact. 

One of our regiments at Savannah, 
Georgia, took possession of a whiskey-shop, 
where the drunken rebels had been getting 
their whiskey. Quite a number of our 
* naughty boys " got on a bender, from the 
same hogshead of liquor. They found it 
would make a Union man drunk just the 
same as it had a rebel. When the liquor 
was all gone and the cask empty, one of our 
naughty ones smashed the head in. And 
what did he find in the bottom ? He found 
about fifteen or twenty pounds of dog-leg 
tobacco. It was well soaked, having been 
there perhaps a year or so. There are per- 
haps five hundred witnesses to this fact. 

If I had time, I could furnish you with a 
number of similar facts. There is a young 
man, living less than fifty miles from Chi- 
cago, who told me that his father owned a 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 357 

large brewery for twelve years, and that he 
worked in the same all that time. He told 
me that the largest bills his father had to 
pay were not for malt, nor for hops, but 
for tobacco. The young man has quit the 
business, but still retains the fortune thus 
acquired. 

Cocculus and tobacco are more extensively 
used in adulterating colored liquors, such as 
red brandies, red wines, and ale and beer. 
When used in white liquors, it has to be 
chemically decomposed, so as to take out 
the coloring matters, — the same as strych- 
nine. 

Tobacco is likely to act as an emetic, if 
partaken of too freely ; and hence it is neces- 
sary to neutralize its emetic property by 
adding a little opium or stramonium. 

Do you remember, when you chewed your 
first chew, or smoked your first cigar, how 
drunk you got? Some of us do. The 



358 alcohol ; 

liquor men, greedy for money, learned, fifty 
years ago, that tobacco was one of the things 
that would " make the drunk come." The 
weed is so well known that I need scarcely 
mention its various qualities, but simply 
state that it is a sedative, narcotic poison, 
and one of the " organic vegetable alkalies," 
that so much resemble each other. You 
will find full descriptions of it in the dispen- 
satories and materia medicas. 

Besides these substances, there are many 
others used, in the adulteration of liquors, 
as a substitute for alcohol, to the number of 
twenty-five or thirty. Such, for instance, 
as digitalis, arnica, coca, aconite, and dra- 
contium ; besides a number of minerals and 
mineral acids. The Dispensatory says, in one 
place, that " proof-spirits are very far from 
being pure ; " and in another place advises 
physicians not to use them, in compounding 
medicines, "on account of their impurities." 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 359 

TThat waould you think of a currency, nine- 
tenths of which were counterfeit ? Or pro- 
visions, nine-tenths of which were diseased 
or poisoned ? 

And what would you ao with the men 
who were engaged in counterfeiting money 
or provisions? You would stop them, 
would you? Well, then, why do you not 
stop those who are counterfeiting drinks ? 
Provisions and drinks all go into the same 
stomach. And poison is just as injurious 
in the one as the other. Why not govern 
them both by the same laws ? 



Alcohol — Are there many Articles used in 
imitating it?— What are Some of them? — To 
what Extent is Adulteration carried on ? — How 
do you know? — Have you got any responsible 
Authorities ? — Who ? — Any Books? — What 
Books ? — Can you detect these Frauds ? — How? 
—What about Chemistry ? — Should deliberate 
Fraud be punished ? — What is the Duty of i 
free People? 



X. 



Frederick Accum, the great chemist and 
lecturer of London, published a book, 
years ago, on this subject. From his book, 
on page 185, let me read these words ; 
w To increase the intoxicating quality of 
beer (and other liquors), the deleterious 
vegetable substance called cocculus indicus, 
and the extract of this same poisonous 
berry, technically called black extract, or 
by some hard multum, are employed, 
opium, tobacco, nux vomica (strychnine), 
and extract of poppies (cheap opium), 
have also been used." 

Well, that helps to confirm what we said 
in Lecture No. 9. 

Besides the organic vegetable alkalies, 
such as strychnine, stramonium, belladon- 

363 



364 alcohol ; 

na, cocculus, tobacco, opium, coca, and 
others, there are many other articles used 
in the adulteration of liquors. Their name 
is legion. Almost every distiller, rectifier, 
vintner, brewer, warehouseman, and re- 
tailer in the whole country, has bought or 
sold receipts for adulterating. Some of 
these ingredients are as villanous and as 
vile as those just now mentioned. Others 
are comparatively innocent. 

I have made out a list of a few of the 
leading articles, and prominent among 
them stands fusil oil, which is largely 
used, in connection with the organic vege- 
table alkalies, to make what is called Cf rot 
gut," or " forty-rod " whiskey, — and well 
named. 

INGREDIENTS OF A WARMING NATURE. 

Pepper, capsicum, cloves, ginger, spice, 
vinegar, acetic acid, tartaric acid, citric 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 365 

acid, butyric acid, cream of tartar, nitric 
acid or aqua-fortis, sulphuric acid, prussic 
acid, sulphuric ether, nitric ether, acetic 
ether, spirits of nitre, oil of vitriol, oil of 
turpentine, oil of cassia, oil of caraway, 
oil of cloves, extract of japonica, extract of 
bitter almonds, extract of orris root, extract 
of angelican root, grains of paradise, mul- 
tum, poppy seeds, juniper berries, aloes, 
cochineal, black ants, and Spanish juice. 

TO GIVE TASTE AXD ASTRIXGEXCY. 

Bruised raisins, dried blackberries, dried 
peaches, dried cherries, orange-peel, cori- 
ander seed, white oak bark, tannic acid, 
kino, rhatany, catechu, caraway seed, car- 
damom seed, fennel seed, wormwood, alum, 
copperas, sulphate of iron, and sulphate of 
copper. 



366 alcohol ; 

to correct unnatural tastes. 

Lime-water, carbonate of lime, carbonate 
of soda, nitrate of potash, caustic potash, 
pearlash, saleratus, sugar of lead, and lith- 
arge. 

COLORING MATTERS. 

Burnt sugar, beet-juice, dried apples, 
dried peaches, elderberries, treacle, red 
saunders, logwood, and sulphuric acid. 

That is perhaps enough, though by no 
means all, of the ingredients used in these 
adulterations. 

It is a very common thing to adulterate, 
or imitate one liquor by mixing in anothei 
— cheaper one. 

We have already shown, in Lectures No. 
1 and 2, that wine, or liquor of any kind, 
wdll not be certain to keep, if exposed to 



ITS NATURE AXD EFFECTS. 367 

transportation, unless it has at least twenty 
per cent, alcoholic strength. 

But the "pure fermented juice of the 
grape" never has that much in it by nature. 
Therefore whiskey or brandy is poured into 
it until it does have that amount of alco- 
holic strength, so as to enable it to bear 
exposure and travel. Hence we see that 
all the wines in the market must first be 
strengthened or adulterated by mixing 
them with stronger liquors. Any one, who 
thinks at all, can see from this that there is 
very little, if any, "pure wine" in the 
market. 

True, it does not necessarily follow that 
it is all adulterated with the sham decoc- 
tions described in Lecture No. 9 ; but 
whether it "necessarily follows," or not, 
we shall soon see whether such is the 
fact. 

Besides the fact that nearly all the wines 



368 alcohol ; 

in the market are strengthened with brandy 
or whiskey, so as to make them keep, there 
is another series of facts tending to prove 
extensive adulterations ; namely, that there 
is perhaps nearly a hundred times as much 
"port wine" sold and drank as can be 
made from all the grapes raised in the re- 
gion of Oporto, including the whole Douro 
Valley. The wine merchants of Oporto 
buy other inferior wines and adulterate 
their own with them, adding beet whiskey, 
potato whiskey, fig whiskey, and water, 
sweetening the same with su^ar of lead or 
litharge, and coloring the same with burnt 
sugar, elderberries, treacle, logwood, and 
the tincture of red saunders. In thif* way 
the wine manufacturers and merchai^s of 
Oporto manage to ship about five times a? 
much as grows in the whole Douro VaJley 
"Port wine" with a vengeance ! 

In proof of this I refer you to the lee 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 369 

tures of Rev. Eliphalet Nott, former Pres- 
ident of Union College, at Schenectady, 
New York, where a mass of facts and fig- 
ures on the subject are presented. Also 
to a book entitled, f ' Tricks of the Trade," 
published by Routlidge, Wason, and Eout- 
lidge, on Farringdon Street, London, and 
56 Walker Street, New York, in which a 
still larger mass of testimony is presented, 
showing the wholesale and villanous adul- 
terations of "port wine" in the very city 
and valley where it is made. Port wine, 
indeed ! 

Another fact. The city of London, in 
1866, with her two and a half millions of 
people, drank twice as much "port wine" 
as was shipped from the whole Douro Val- 
ley in the same year, counting the good and 
bad and all together. This shows that the 
famous wines of Oporto, already increased 
by adulterations to five times their bulk, 

24 



370 ALCOHOL ; 

were doubled in quantity again, in the city 
of London alone. How are you, port wine ? 

During the same year, the city of New 
York, with her million people, drank and 
sold about the same quantity that was made 
and adulterated in the whole Douro Valley ! 

So that we have already accounted for 
three times the quantity shipped from Por- 
tugal, and have only considered the markets 
of London and New York. And as the 
quantity originally shipped was five times 
too great, it follows that we have accounted 
for three times five, which is fifteen times 
as much w port wine " as cau be made from 
all the grapes of the Douro. And yet we 
have considered only two of the great wine 
markets of the world. 

Strange that an intelligent people will let 
themselves be gulled in this way. If the 
Douro Eiver were a thousand miles long, 
instead of only sixty miles, it could not 



ITS NATURE -AND EFFECTS. 371 

furnish grapes enough to make all this 
ocean of "port wine." The whole world of 
fashionable topers, and invalids, and imbe- 
ciles, are drinking wine made out of the lit- 
tle handful of grapes grown on the banks 
of a small creek in Portugal ! 

The miracle of feeding five thousand 
souls from "five loaves and three small 
fishes," and having plenty left, is a small, 
cheap, commonplace transaction. The ex- 
pansion of " port wine " beats the " loaves 
and fishes ! " 

The United States Dispensatory says : 
"Considerable quantities of brandy are 
usually added to port wine, which causes 
its heating quality on the palate. It is 
sometimes made of a small proportion of 
real port wine, mixed with cider, juice of 
elderberries, and brandy, and colored and 
rendered astringent with logwood and 
alum." 



372 alcohol ; 

That from the Dispensatory ! And other 
medical and chemical authors tell us that 
w all kinds of wine are largely adulterated ; 
and sugar of lead is extensively used to 
sweeten the adulterations." 

Well, now, imagine a gallon of real, gen- 
uine port wine is taken from the wine-press 
on the banks of the Douro, to a warehouse 
in Oporto. There it is made into five gal- 
lons by adding beet whiskey, elderberry 
juice, and water ; it is then shipped to a 
London Dock warehouse, where it is made 
into ten gallons by adding potato whiskey, 
cocculus, and water, and colored with treacle 
and red saunders ; thence it goes to a New 
York warehouse, where it is made into 
twenty gallons by adding strychnine, or 
belladonna, whiskey, and opium, and colored 
with logwood. Then it comes to a whole- 
sale warehouse in Chicago, where it is made 
into forty gallons, by adding more strych- 



ITS NATURE ANT> EFFECTS, 373 

nine, stramonium, belladonna, whiskey, and 
water, and colored with red saunders, log- 
wood, and sulphuric acid. Then it goes to 
a retail shop on Clark Street, where it is 
made into eighty gallons, by adding tobacco- 
juice, burnt sugar, alum, and sugar of lead. 

It now has, as the Dispensatory truly 
says, "a very little pure wine" in it, but is 
only a heterogeneous mass of third-rate 
chemicals. 

At this point a Wabash Avenue deacon 
buys a part of it for sacramental purposes, 
and takes it to the sanctuary ; and you 
and I are invited to partake of this delicious 
and delightful nectar, in order to commem- 
orate the purity and holiness of One who 
"came to redeem the world from sin," and 
who said to the wayward people of the 
world, " All things whatsoever ye would 
that men should do unto you, do ye even so 
unto them." 



374 alcohol ; 

What becomes of the beautiful words of 
Jesus, at the last supper, when giving the 
cup to his disciples he said, "I will not 
drink henceforth of this fruit of the vine, 
until that day when I shall drink it new 
with you, in my Father's kingdom "? Beau- 
tiful, beautiful! "I will not drink hence- 
forth this fruit of the vine!" Well, is this 
heterogeneous conglomerate of poisons, 
drugs, and dye-stuffs, the "fruit of the 
vine"? God help the vine that bears such 
fruit as that ! " Until that day when I shall 
drink it new with you, in my Father's king- 
dom." N-e-w, new! What does the 
word new mean in that passage? If it 
means anything, it means neiv " fruit of the 
vine ! " — fresh, new juice of the grape ! — 
unfermented wine, just as it comes from 
the grape ! 

How easy to squeeze new, sweet juice out 
of ripe grapes, heat it hot and can it up, so 



ITS NATTJEE AXD EFFECTS. 375 

as to have it pure, sweet, and new, for the 
communion table ! 

Such a sacrament as that I trust I shall 
always be worthy to take along with those 
who hope to be rewarded, according to their 
deeds, in the realm of departed spirits 
beyond the grave ; but fermented, adulter- 
ated, poisoned, and counterfeited slop I 
never will take at the communion table 
again, so help me, God ! The minister of 
the gospel, who, through ignorance, gives 
such loathsome, counterfeit trash to his flock, 
and calls it the "fruit of the vine," and thinks 
it is new, deserves the pity of all intelligent 
people, and should be forgiven; but the 
clergyman who gives it knowingly, is neither 
a Christian nor an honest man, but a base 
hypocrite, so treacherous to the principles 
of truth and righteousness as to deserve 
the contempt of all good and faithful 
citizens. 



376 alcohol; 

So much for "port wine." And what 
we have said of this is almost equally true 
of most other wines. Talk about Madeira 
wine ! The w T hole island of Madeira only 
ships about twenty-five thousand barrels a 
year, and less than one-fifth of this is "pure " 
when it leaves the island. All the rest is 
counterfeited and adulterated, about the same 
as port wine, before it goes on board the 
vessel. And if God ever pities anything 
that is abused, he certainly pities poor 
Madeira wine, after it passes through three 
or four wholesale establishments, and has 
been three days in a retailer's cellar ! 

One gallon has changed into a hundred ; 
and it would take an industrious and first- 
class chemist at least a week to detect and 
describe the poisons and adulterations ; 
taste, flavor, bouquet, bead, age, intoxicat- 
ing qualities, — all counterfeit. 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 377 

And the same of sherry , Champagne, 
claret, and Burgundy, — the whole brood. 

Did you know there is nearly as much 
California wine in St. Louis and Chicago, 
as there is pressed in all California ? Notf\ 
one gallon in a hundred ever saw California. 
Not one gallon in a hundred ever heard of a 
grape. 

A druggist in Cincinnati, Ohio, sent to 
New York for two hogsheads of seignette 
brandy, so as to supply the physicians with 
the very best article for medical purposes. 
One cask was dark seignette, the other pale 
seignette. Dr. Cox, the chemist, tested 
them ; poured some into a tumbler ; sunk a 
polished steel blade into it, and let it remain 
there fifteen minutes. At the end of that 
time the steel blade had K turned the brandy 
black as ink. The steel spatula itself cor- 
roded, and when dried left a thick coating 
of rust, which when wiped off left a copper 



378 alcohol; 

coat (on the spatula) almost as thick as if 
it had been plated with copper." 

Dr. Cox warned the druggist jiot to sell 
it, and advised him not to pay for it. The 
New York man sued the druggist for his 

CD 

pay. At the trial, Dr. Cox analyzed the 
stuff, in the presence of the court and jury. 

In one cask he found "sulphuric acid, 
nitric acid, nitric ether, prussic acid, Guiana 
pepper, an abundance of fusil oil. I pro- 
nounced it base, common whiskey. Not 
one drop of wine." 

In the other cask he found "the same 
adulterations as the first, but in greater 
abundance, with the addition of catechu. 
This is mostvillanous." 

The jury decided that the liquor was 
worthless, and the New York man left town 
without his pay. They should have decided 
the liquor to be criminally counterfeit, and 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 379 

should have sent the maker and seller of it 
to the penitentiary. 

The druggist and other good judges had 
tasted out of both of these casks of brandy, 
and so complete was the deception that they 
all pronounced it a very superior article. 

Taste and smell are incomplete tests. It 
wants a first-class chemist in every county, 
in all the States, with a full supply of instru- 
ments and chemicals. Let the chemists 
spot the base and infamous counterfeits. 
And let the sheriff spot the still more base 
and infamous counterfeiters. 

You send your sons to college, and they 
study chemistry. Now, why don't you use 
their knowledge ? If a lower grade of third- 
rate chemists mix liquors and sell receipts, 
why not employ first-rate chemists to ex- 
pose them? Let honest, scientific chemistry 
expose these dishonest and sham mixtures. 
Why not? 



380 alcohol ; 

But the liquor men of Cincinnati brought 
their influence to bear upon the next legisla- 
ture of the State, so as to suppress Dr. 
Cox's official report. 

Perhaps they will suppress this report of 
mine, and perhaps not. I rather think not ! 
If it took ten thousand dollars in the legis- 
lature of Ohio, to suppress and smother 
down Dr. Cox's report, how much will it 
take to suppress and smother down these 
Lectures of mine ? 

They are goiug to be printed in a book, 
in a few days, and sold to the people, and a 
million of dollars will not stop them. 

I shall receive nearly two hundred dol- 
lars for writing them ; and it has taken about 
two years of labor, while I haye boarded 
and found myself, and paid for my own 
paper. 

Two or three years ago, a liquor house in 
this city offered me two hundred dollars a 



ITS NATURE AXD EFFECTS. 381 

month, and all expenses paid, to travel on 
the railroads of the north-west, and sell 
liquors for them. I believed, and still be- 
lieve, their liquors to be made chiefly of 
strychnine, stramonium, opium, and water, 
which ought to be a criminal fraud upon 
their customers. Of course I refused to 
touch them. 

What ! sell base, adulterated, counter- 
feited liquors, that I would not dare to 
drink myself, — made out of the organic 
vegetable alkalies and other poisons, — sell 
these to my fellow-men, for a salary of two 
thousand four hundred dollars a year ? Xot 
yet, not yet ! 

But you perhaps think these statements 
concerning the adulterations of liquors 
are not backed up with sufficient proof. 

Well, I have already quoted from Dr. 
George B. Wood, of the Dispensatory, from 
the great London chemist, Frederick Accum, 



382 alcohol; 

from the eminent educator and sck^/.r, 
Eliphalet Nott, to the careful Ohio chemist, 
Dr. Cox, and others, and have referred you, 
generally, to the standard works on chem- 
istry and medicine. But I have oceans 
more. I have in my possession, at this 
present hour, a library of some thirty or 
forty books and pamphlets, all of which pile 
evidence upon evidence tending to show 
the truth of all these statements. These 
books belong to James Black, of Lancaster, 
Pennsylvania, who has been buyii>g them 
up, one at a time, for years. 

Most of them are collections of receipts 
for making all kinds of liquors, and have 
been prepared by third-rate chemists, and 
experienced distillers, rectifiers, brewers, 
dealers, and retailers, and sold, on the sly, 
for enormous prices. 

One of them is a book of over two hun- 
dred pages and bears the following title : 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 383 

w A Treatise on the Manufacture, Imitation, 
Adulteration, and Reduction, of Foreign 
Wines, Brandies, Gins, Rums, etc., and all 
kinds of Domestic Liquors, based upon the 
French System ; by a Practical Chemist 
and Experienced Liquor Dealer. Price ten 
dollars. Published for the author, in Phil- 
adelphia, 1860." This book is all it pre- 
tends to be, and bears the marks, all through 
it, of more than usual intelligence ; and 
the adulterations explained in it are rather 
of a better grade than ordinary. This book 
tells you how to make one hundred and sixty- 
five different kinds of brandies, wines, ciders, 
bitters, and cordials out of common corn 
whiskey and cheap drugs. A whiskey man 
on Randolph Street, w T ho has heard of the 
book, and knows that I have it, wants 
to give me a hundred dollars for it. He 
does not know where to buy another copy. 
Neither do I. 



384 ALCOHOL ; 

Another one of the books is entitled, 
* The Manufacture of Liquors, Wines, and 
Cordials, without the Aid of Distillation, 
Prepared and arranged expressly for the 
Trade." This book contains about one 
hundred and thirty-five receipts. Chapter 
VI. of this book shows how to take common 
raw whiskey, and make it into "brandy, 
peach brandy, gin, rum, ckeny bounce, 
and all kinds of liquors, at twelve cents 
a gallon." 

Another one is entitled, "The Brewer's 
and Licensed Victualler's Guide," and is 
similar to the two just named. 

Another is entitled "Fermented Liq- 
uors," and was published in 1858. 

Another is entitled " The Liquor Dealer's 
Guide. By a Practical Liquor Manufac- 
turer." It was published in 1858. 

Still another one is entitled "The Wine 
Merchant's Companion ; " still another, 



ITS NATURE ASD EFFECTS. 385 

" The Complete Practical Distiller ; " and still 
another, "Every Man his own Butler." 
These, and a number more, make up a 
a pretty fair liquor library. 

But the meanest, vilest, and lowest of all 
these receipts for adulterating are not 
printed at all. Their base and cowardly 
authors have not dared to print them. 
These are only written on paper, hidden 
away, and kept securely locked. These 
cost money. They are studied, by candle- 
light, down in dingy cellars. In these you 
will find a depth of depravity, villany, and 
a heartless brutality that almost curdles 
one's blood. On reading these, the face of 
a patriot flushes and pales ; and the heart 
of an honest man becomes posed and ap- 
palled. Are we all human? Or have 
some of us become demons ? God forgive 
the wickedness of the wicked ! 

Thomas McMullen is the author of a book 

25 



386 ALCOHOL ; 

entitled "Hand Book of Wines,'' which is 
now a text-book among the better class of 
grape-growers, who make smaller quanti- 
ties of wine, chiefly for their own use. On 
page 172, he says that one wine-shipper, in 
a single year, shipped from Cette and Mar- 
seilles to the United States more than 
eighty thousand bottles of Champagne 
w r ine, " not the product of grapes, but 
wholly fabricated." The same author, at 
page 323, describes a "grape wine, that is 
made out of black sugar, water, and the 
leaves of the akaja-tree to make it intoxicat- 
ing." And again he describes "English 
brandy that is made out of spirits distilled 
from corn, reduced, rectified, flavored, and 
otherwise drugged/' And he says that 
w Swedish brandy is made of corn whiskey 
and the black ant." 

Eev. Eliphalet Nott, in his Lecture No. 
6, says, "I had a friend who had him- 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 387 

self been a wine-dealer. Having read the 
startling statements made public, in relation 
to the brewing of wines, and the adultera- 
tion of liquors generally, I inquired of that 
friend as to the verity of these statements. 
His reply was, f God forgive what has 
passed in my own cellar ! but the state- 
ments are true, true, I assure you.' " 

Now let us quote a few lines from the 
great English chemist, A. Normandy. 
This able gentleman, in the year 1850, 
published a book of six hundred and forty 
pages, entitled "The Commercial Hand- 
Book of Chemical Analysis." From page 
95, I read these words : "Brandy, gin, rum, 
whiskey, etc., are alcoholic liquors, ob- 
tained from the distillation of certain fer- 
mented substances. Pure brandy is ob- 
tained from the distillation of wine, and has 
a pungent, agreeable taste, but barely rec- 
ognizable, however, in the mixtures of 



388 • alcohol ; 

alcohol and water, colored with burnt sugar, 
flavored with pepper, cayenne, or other 
acrid substances, to make believe a strength 
of alcohol, the proportion of which is atten- 
uated to the least possible amount." 

So that the fact that the vast majority of 
liquors are not what they pretend to be, 
but are only base imitations, is well attested. 
The testimony of reliable authors is almost 
unanimous, and cannot be disproved. 
The liquor men will not dare to let their 
slops be analyzed by competent men. It 
would ruin the sale of all the stock they 
have on hand. How can you stop the 
iniquitous business? 

The only possible chance to detect and 
stop these shameful adulterations and more 
shameful impostors who mix them, that I 
can see, is to put them on the same basis 
with other varieties of fraud. If a man 
sells you a counterfeit bill for good money, 



ITS NATURE ASD EFFECTS. 389 

what has he done ? He has obtained money 
from you under false pretences, and by de- 
ception, — that is all. If one man forges 
the name pf another to a note and sells it, 
he simply obtains money by false pretences 
and deception, — that is all. Now if a man 
sells you a liquor that is not what he pre- 
tends it is, he defrauds you out of your 
money, by false pretences and deception, 
just the same as the others ; worse than 
the others, because he has given you, in ex- 
change, an article that is an absolute injury 
to you ; more so than the real liquor. 

Suppose your milk-peddlers were to sup- 
ply the market with milk, from cows that 
were trembling, falling, and dying with the 
terrible milk sickness that prevails in a few 
districts ; and suppose that some of your 
innocent children, eating the milk, were to 
be poisoned to death ; what would you 
do? You would instantly appoint first-class 



390 ALCOHOL ; 

chemists to analyze all the milk in the mar- 
ket, and keep on analyzing from day to 
day. And, when you found a man who 
knowingly sold such milk, you would pun- 
ish him severely. What if your butcher 
were to sell you beef that had died with the 
murrain or the rinderpest, or sell you pork 
that had died with the trichina or hydro- 
phobia? Or still worse, should mix in 
foreign poisons, to make the meat w r eigh 
more ? What would you do ? You would 
analyze the meat and punish the wilful 
offender. So that, even if you believe al- 
coholic liquors to be as necessary as milk 
or meat, you should require them to be 
w r hatever they pretend to be. Afraid are 
you? Cowardly? Afraid to demand your 
rights in a land where the voice of the peo- 
ple rules ? I guess not. 

Meats, vegetables, fruits, and water are 
known to us all, and we can judge for our- 



ITS NATURE AND EFFECTS. 391 

selves ; but if a man offers to sell any other 
kind of food or drinks, make him label the 
box, barrel, or bottle with the name of the 
contents, what ingredients compose it, and 
in what proportion. Analyze the contents, 
and if it is not what it pretends to be, — if 
it is a deliberate fraud, confiscate the adul- 
terated stuff, and punish the manufacturer. 

A paper currency is bad enough, but a 
counterfeit imitation of a worthless, irre- 
deemable shin-plaster is worse. 

But perhaps the best plan is to abolish 
the whole business. This course of lec- 
tures proves alcoholic liquors to be entirely 
worthless, and a source of great calamities 
and evils, and to tolerate such base imita- 
tions and poisonous mixtures of the same 
is a disgrace to the intelligence of this age, 
and a scandal to a free and moral people. 

Remember, citizens, that you are free as 
the mountain winds, and that one wave of 



392 ALCOHOL. 

a 

your mighty hand can accomplish whatever 
your affections desire, your intellect directs 
and your conscience approves. Let the 
principles of liberty, justice, and right 
remain forever, solid as the everlasting 
rocks, and eternal as the sea. 






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